It was 30 years ago that Rowe, a nursing assistant in the office of Dr. Arnold
Klein, a Beverly Hills, Calif., dermatologist, first met one of his famed
clients — Michael Jackson.

“I go ‘Hi’. And he goes ‘Hi,’ and I said, ‘You know what? Nobody does what you do better, and nobody does what I do better. Let’s get this over with.’ And he laughed, and we just became friends. It was just right away,” said Rowe in a 2003 interview. (Bashir Part 2, 2003)
Testimony From 2005

What kind of work was that that you were
doing for Mr. Klein?
A. He’s a dermatologist. I was an assistant for him.
Q. For what period of time were you his
assistant?
10 A. From 1979 to 2000 or 2001.
11 Q. What kind of work did you do for Mr. —
12 Dr. Klein?
13 A. I assisted him with surgeries and patients.

15 Q. When did you first meet Michael?
16 A. In the .80s.
17 Q. And how did you meet Michael?
18 A. Through my office when I worked with Dr.
19 Klein.
20 Q. Okay. And what was your position with Dr.
21 Klein at the time?
22 A. I was an assistant.
23 Q. And Michael went to Dr. Klein for various
24 treatments, right?
25 A. Yes.
26 Q. And do you recall when he first went to Dr.
27 Klein?
28 A. Yes. The very first day, yes. I was not 8020
1 his nurse then.

Reginas Santos, MJ’s Publicist Statement 5 November 1996

“To avoid any further inaccurate reports in the media and tabloid press, Michael Jackson announces today that his longtime close friend of 15 years, Debbie Rowe, is pregant and will have his child in early 1997.”

Arnold Klein, July 8th 2009

KING: Now, the Debbie Rowe part of the story. She was your nurse, right?
KLEIN: Yes.
KING: They met, I guess, in your office?
KLEIN: Yes.

Debbie and Klein accompany him on a few dates of the Bad Tour, Gothenburg, Germany, July 11-12 1988

20 I did go to the last concert in Gutenberg [sic: Gothenburg), I
21 think on the tour previous to that. Because
22 Gutenberg wasn’t on the “Dangerous” tour.

Teddy Riley says MJ spoke to him about Debbie, Dangerous recording sessions took place between June 25, 1990 – October 29, 1991.

“Pleasing the kids, that’s all I want to do,” Riley, 30, says with a sheepish smile in the dressing room moments later.I just get joy from doing the music,” he continues as he and his group mates–Chauncey Hannibal, Mark Middleton and Eric Williams–watch other “All That” segments on monitors and munch on soul food from Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles. But as he speaks, it becomes clear that there’s more to it than that. I wrote ‘Remember the Time’ when Michael {Jackson} told me about falling in love with {Debbie Rowe}, the woman he just married. I don’t know why he didn’t marry her the first time around. That’s why songs like that, and Bobby Brown’s ‘ My Prerogative,’ are still relevant, cause they speak about their lives and the lives of others. My songs are just a soundtrack for life.

10. The woman in the white dress: ‘He told me he was seeing this nurse about something and that something magic was going to happen. What was happening was she (Debbie Rowe) was carrying the babies or they were making the deal to do it, so I painted a nurse that looks like an angel.’

Debbie Rowe (Interview with KNBC November 28 1997)

Interviewer: Having the baby was her idea. It was a subject that was talked about before Jackson’s marriage to Lisa Marie Presley.Debbie: He did love her very, very much, still does. Still cares about her very, very much. But, um, it didn’t work out. And, uh, he was devastated.Interviewer: After the divorce, Debbie, who met Jackson while working in a Dr’s Office again brought up the subject of children.Debbie: Well, I said, I said, you know, my offer still stands….Interviewer: So, if you want to be a parent ….Debbie: So I said, I said…If you want to be a daddy…I want to do it.

Let me start by saying Michael Jackson was truly my first love. I will admit my madness for him did not start until Thriller. It was Christmas time when the video came out. I will never forget watching it on Christmas Eve. I tried to learn every move and so did everyone else (admit it).. I had posters all over my room.. and when BAD came out I had this Cardboard huge picture of him from the Album cover. I got it from the record store in the mall. It was behind my bed and he was always with me. I will also have to add to this story that I really did get into fights with people espeically in high school.. decade or more since the BAD album. I hated when people made of fun of him and they pissed me off and they picked on me about it.. Even one teacher use to always give me a hard time. I was a Michael Jackson advocate (still am)..One time I told my teacher if he didn’t stop I was going to stand in the hall.. LOL! but I was really mad..just so you know..

Moving on…When I moved to Los Angeles. I moved in to an apartment in Van Nuys, California. The lady across the hall was super cool. She knocked on our door very often. She would soon become a big part of my life. I can still say to this day I have never met anyone quite like her. She was something else. It wasn’t very long before she told us how close she was to Michael Jackson. She worked for his dermatologist and had known him for many years. Well, I have to admit I did not believe her. I figured she was some crazy lady and a liar. She said he gave her the vehicle she drove and that she is very good friends with him. I soon find myself in her modest apartment looking at all of the proof I needed, to know that she was telling the truth. I told her all about my love story. Over the next two years we become very good friends. I can remember one day answering her phone and it was him.. wow! I recognized his voice and flipped out.. I had already met him by this time so he knew who I was. He asked her” if that was that country girl” Very Cool.. So yes, I did meet him once.. alot of people don’t believe me and others don’t care. LOL!

Either way it happen.. and it was something very special to me and I will never forget it. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for him. I also know he is innocent so whatever.. don’t piss me off about that shit either.. ha ha

Debbie and Arnold accompany him on the Dangerous World Tour, 1992

What was the first tour that you went on
7 with Michael?
8 A. “Dangerous.”
9 Q. And approximately when was that?
10 A. I don’t remember. That was — all those
11 tours. And they all just ran together, because it
12 was a long schedule.
13 Q. Okay. Was it in the .80s or .90s; do you
14 know?
15 A. I think it was in the early .90s.
16 Q. Okay. And where did that tour go to?
17 A. I think it started in Bangkok, and went
18 throughout Asia, Japan, Singapore. Then there was a
19 break. And then it went to Europe.
20 I did go to the last concert in Gutenberg [sic: Gothenburg), I
21 think on the tour previous to that. Because
22 Gutenberg wasn’t on the “Dangerous” tour.
23 Q. And were you traveling with Michael along
24 with his physician?
25 A. Yes.
26 Q. Okay. And you then went on another tour
27 after that?
28 A. Yes.

Michael enters rehab, November 12 1993

‘When he went into the rehab, I remember that Debbie was so, so relived.’ says Tonya Boyd. ‘When Michael got out of rehab he started dating Lisa Marie. But he never stopped seeing Debbie, even after he married Lisa Marie.’

“I know when Michael was addicted, Debbie stayed on the telephone for hours and hours, pleading with him to save himself”, says Debbie’s friend Tonya Boyd. “She told me that she said: ‘If you die, I will be crushed. I wouldn’t be able to survive it. You are my very life’.” (Daily Record)

Debbie and Arnold Klein testify that Michael has vitiligo and lupus at the deposition in early 1994

20 Q. I mean, your first time you ever met Mr.
21 Sneddon was the early .90s, wasn’t it?
22 A. I don’t remember. I remember I did a
23 deposition. I thought it was for a woman. I don’t
24 remember. I don’t remember any of that part. I
25 tend to block out unpleasantries. I don’t remember
26 any of that part. I don’t remember if Mr. Sneddon
27 was there or not.
28 Q. Okay. 8023

Photo of Debbie and Mike at a clinic/hospital, 1995

Magic/Madness, 1995

Lisa Marie’s friend Monica Pastelle says: ‘I recall Lisa telling me that Michael was trying to make her believe he was interested in a white nurse who worked for his dermatologist. Lisa just laughed it off. She thought Michael was trying to make her jealous, just playing games.’

‘But it was true, just the same: Michael was seeing Debbie Rowe while he was married to Lisa,’ says Monica Pastelle. ‘And Lisa knew it. At one point, she and Debbie had a tense telephone conversation during which Lisa said: “Look, nursey. I’m sorry that you’re in love with my husband. But he’s mine. So get lost”.

‘Afterwards, Lisa burst out laughing. She said: “Can you imagine? Me acting like the jealous little wife because Michael’s wet nurse -or whatever she is- is in love with him. What is this craziness?” ‘

So She took me to Gower Studio where he was shooting a music video. He works at night so we went around 11pm. I was so nervous (only he and Dolly would make me nervous).. We arrivedand his body guards led us to a trailer. She went in and left me outside of the trailer for a while. Finally, she opened the door and called me in.. She said “Michael this is Tonya Tonya this is Michael”. he shook my hand.. and I said the dumbest shit ever… ” “should I faint now or later” giggle giggle.. He then said “listen to her laugh.”. so I sat in the corner in a chair while she, Michael and the makeup artist all carry on while he is getting his makeup done… not many people can say they have done that.. he is very private about his make up affairs ha ha

Off to the set we went… I was so shy and trailed behind.. He stopped and waited on me.. Such a gentleman.. We did go in his personal trailer and there was candy all over the place..just as I would have imagined . We soon had to leave cuz Lisa Marie was on her way. She was in that video and well, it was time to go..

Neverland….. I also got to go to Neverland with her. It was wild.. He was not there but his spirit was and it was amazing.. It was so surreal walking thru his home… with such an inviting staff treating us awesome…

Baby! Wow! One day she starts telling me she was planning on having him a baby! How did I find myself in Michael Jackson’s world (sort of).. She told me this way before she was ever pregnant . I have to admit even still. I was not sure if she was telling the truth. This is just getting too far fetched.. LOL! Your gonna have his baby and give it to him. Well, she was telling the truth. That’s exactly what she did two times. Funny thing is I have never told anyone this.. except me and my family laugh about it. I’m just saying:: I have a neice name PARIS.. She loved Paris’s name.. when my neice and nephew visisted from Alabama. She arranged it with MJ for us to all go to Neverland..Well we always joke and say thats where they got the name PARIS.. My lady friend did tell me that one time.. but who would believe me so nevermind doesn’t matter anyway.

July 31-August 6, 1995

After an argument with Lisa Marie, Michael flies to Disneyland Paris and doesn’t see or speak to Lisa Marie for 6 weeks.

She tells Rolling Stone in 2003: “He got upset and he would just disappear.”

Lisa, Playboy, June 2003

PLAYBOY: Did you and Michael discuss having kids?

PRESLEY: Yeah. [Laughs] I got out of that one. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea right now.” But I knew that’s what he wanted. And I knew Debbie Rowe was offering to do it for him while we were married, according to him. She was a nurse who had a crush on him and offered to have his babies.

PLAYBOY: Was he trying to leverage you into agreeing?

PRESLEY: Kind of. “Debbie Rowe says she’ll do it.” Ok, have Debbie Rowe do it! And it’s funny, when I imagined having a child with him, all I could ever see was a custody battle nightmare.

Lisa Marie files for divorce, December 1995

Debbie becomes pregnant with Michael’s child, December 1995

January, 1996

Michael shoots the “Prison” version of the They Don’t Care About Us video directed by Spike Lee in New York .

March 1996

Debbie sufferes a miscarriage.

April 28 1996

Wearing a black surgical mask, pop singer Michael Jackson arrives with an unidentified companion at a performance of the play “Sisterella.”

When the story broke that she was having his baby! The madness of Micheal Jackson’s life had landed in mine and let’s just say it was not pretty.. I was managing the bldg by this time… News trucks, paparazzi, you name it.. they were lined up outside our building and it was a big ol fat trip. Then everyone that lived in the building started getting phone calls from Hardcopy, Extra, Entertainment Tonight, British shows, papers. How they got our phone numbers is still beyond me. She started neeeding a body guard and could not leave her home. His life is sad and I get it now. I only tasted a peanut!

Then there was the night that she got a call from Hardcopy ttelling her that an Xfriend of hers was coming out saying some bad things. They told her if she would do the interview they would not run the negative one. Somehow I find myself in my bathroom gagging over the toilet. My nerves were about to have a heart attack.. ha ha What is going on? There are cameras in my living room.. and I am being interviewed with very strict guidelines of what I can and cannot say.. I hated it.. How did I find myself speaking on her behalf about her and Michael Jackson. I still have a copy of it. I can’t even watch it .. embarrassing.

The whole thing really turned out a big heart ache. Before it was all over noone in our building trusted each other. Someone stole a picture of her and MJ out of her apartment and sold it. She didn’t know who to trust and our building became bad energy.. I moved soon after and so did she. She will always have a soft spot in my heart!

weird.. many many years later I am now really good friends with his manager from back in the day. Random, I met him thru music.. in Nashville…So now I know two people that know him very closely and another reason I know he is innocent…….Just saying! MJ I love you! forever! If I had a son… he could come over and play cuz I trust you! I listen to my heart and my instincts are always right.. so fuckem…

She did end up becoming his wife and then they later divorced…. I kept her dogs while she went out of town to marry him.. ok true story whatever.. ha ha

Magic/Madness, November 3 1996

“At the time when the story broke, Debbie was supposed to meet him in Australia”, said Tonya Boyd. “She presumed that the trip would be off, that Michael would be so upset about what had happened that he would refuse to see her. She cried a lot that day.”

The day the story of Debbie’s pregnancy broke, Michael’s mother Katherine tracked Debbie down at her friend Tonya Boyd’s house where she was hiding.

‘I picked up the telephone, hoping it was Michael calling for Debbie from Australia, and this woman said: “Would you please put Miss Rowe on the phone?”

‘I thought it was a reporter, so I said: “She’s not here.” And the woman said: “Well this is Michael Jackson’s mother. I simply must find her.” Iimmediately handed Debbie the phone.’

Katherine was, as Debbie’s friend put it, ‘sweet as pie to her’, and talked for an hour about the sanctity of marriage, and the Jehovah’s Witness faith which she believed in so passionately.

Debbie, say friends, was impressed. In fact, by the end of the conversation, she had agreed that not only should she convince Michaelto marry … she was practically ready to convert to the Jehovah’s Witness faith.

When Michael found out that Katherine and Debbie had spoken he probably suspected that his life was about to change. Then, when Katherinefinally managed to get her superstar son on the telephone -according to what Michael told one of his managers- Katherine wept and told him to
marry ‘that nice girl, Debbie’ and ‘give your child a name’.

Katherine pushed all the right buttons or, as one Jackson associate puts it, ‘she played him like a fiddle’. ‘Finally’, says a source close to the singer, ‘Michael agreed that he should marry Debbie Rowe. “It’s definitely the right thing to do,’ he said” ‘

Nov 7, 1996

The LA-based, British-run, Splash news agency is very smug about breaking the Michael Jackson baby story with London’s News of the World under the noses of us Yanks. “We’ve been working on the story for 2 1/2 months.

Our source told us originally that (Debbie Rowe) is having his baby, but it was us who established it was true,” says Splash partner Kevin Smith. Video of the woman, a blond nurse who helped treat Jackson for his skin disease, has been sold around the world by Splash, including to Hard Copy and Geraldo Rivera this week. News of the World broke the story Sunday, after confirming Splash’s information.

November 7th 1996

The nervous nurse who is bearing Michael Jackson’s glove-child may be cracking under the media glare.

Debbie Rowe has been dodging reporters ever since word of her peculiar pregnancy leaked out.

And worried pals yesterday said a 37-year-old woman in her condition should be taking it easy.

“I’m very worried about her right now,” Tonya Watts told “Hard Copy” last night. “I’m worried that the stress might be affecting her.”

“I don’t think she was ready” for all the attention, added Kevin Forrest, who along with Watts lives in the same Los Angeles apartment complex as Rowe.

As for the 38-year-old Jackson, Watts said, “Michael is actually very normal.”

“Everyone has a hard time seeing they are normal, two normal friends,” she said of the soon-to-be parents.

Jackson announced this week that Rowe was pregnant with his child, and denied reports that she was artificially inseminated.

But the mascara-wearing superstar has been unable to dodge suspicion that the pregnancy like his failed marriage to Lisa Marie Presley is an attempt to repair a public image that was damaged by accusations that he molested a 13-year-old boy. Jackson insists he’s innocent.

Watts insisted the pregnancy was for real.

“She didn’t break it to us until recently,” said Watts. “I mean we are all neighbors and great friends, and we have hung out a lot. But she would never tell us who the child belonged to.”

“She is very excited to give Michael something he has always wanted,” she added. “It’s like a dream come true.”

Rowe was quoted in the tab as saying that she and the Gloved One had sex but didn’t conceive. “Michael then said that artificial insemination would be a foolproof way of doing it and he was proven right,” she reportedly said.

Splash, November 7, 1996

How Splash confirmed it: “(Rowe) told us in her own words, but she didn’t know she was talking to us.” A deceptive tactic? “We call it investigative journalism,” says (Stuart) Smith. He says he met Rowe, but won’t say how. “She really is Michael Jackson’s best friend,” he says, but adds that the two aren’t romantically involved. “Theirs is a brotherly-sisterly love.” Says News of the World’s Stuart White: “She didn’t do this for monetary gain, but monetary gain will result. She made it clear her role is to deliver (the baby) to Jackson after three to four weeks. It will be looked after by two nannies hired by Jackson.”

November 8

What is the origin of the stories that Michael’s baby was conceived by artificial insemination and that MJ paid his wife, Debbie Rowe-Jackson, to have the child?

In early November 1996, the London tabloid, News of the World, claimed that Debbie Rowe-Jackson had conceived Michael’s child through artificial insemination at the Los Angeles Fertility Institute and was being paid $500,000 to have the baby. The tabloid further claimed that Rowe-Jackson would surrender custody to Michael and would retain only visiting rights. The New York Daily News quoted neighbors of Debbie’s, Kevin Forrest and Tonya Watts, as saying that she had told them she was having the child out of friendship, but it was a natural conception. The News of the World countered by publishing what they said was an interview with Debbie’s father, Gordon Rowe, in which he said she told him in a phone call that the child was conceived by artificial insemination. The December 2, 1996 issue of People magazine quoted a neighbor and “pal”, Mary Colandro, as also saying Rowe-Jackson was “having the baby for Michael as a friend” though it was a natural conception. On November 4, 1996, Michael Jackson confirmed that he was indeed to become a father, but called rumors that the mother was artificially inseminated “completely false and irresponsible” and denied he had paid Rowe-Jackson to have the child. Nevertheless, the tabloid stories were picked up and repeated around the globe by mainstream news outlets until they gained a dubious legitimacy in the mind of the public.

Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe were married on November 14, 1996, in Sydney, Australia. Reports soon followed in the Australian tabloids that Debbie was asking for a divorce. At length, tired of immodest speculation in the media, Michael and Debbie issued a press release on January 6, 1997, in which they said, “Deborah has been extremely upset by the flagrant fabrications and utter lies that have been published about her and the false statements attributed to her father which he never made. Deborah’s father supports her decisions 100 percent. Not inclined to respond to false and vicious reports, Deborah is adamant about again setting the record straight that Michael is the father of the child, the pregnancy is not the result of artificial means, that she has not been paid to have Michael’s baby, and that she is not seeking or filing for a divorce.”

(San Jose Mercury News, People, Entertainment Wire)

“It was not an accident,” says Kevin Forrest, a neighbor of Rowe’s. “Michael wanted to have a child. And when Lisa Marie wouldn’t… well, it was not an accident. Debbie wanted to do this for Michael.”

The woman who is carrying Michael Jackson’s baby has told friends that the King of Pop’s marriage to Lisa Marie Presley broke up because she wouldn’t have his child.

Friends of Debbie Rowe, a 37-year-old divorced California nurse, said she took on the task of bearing Jackson’s baby purely out of friendship and that she expects little in return and will let him raise the child.

“It was not an accident,” said Kevin Forrest, a neighbor of Rowe’s. “This was a planned pregnancy. Michael wanted to have a child for some time. And when Lisa Marie wouldn’t. . . . It was not an accident.”

“[Debbie] wanted to do this for Michael,” he added. “He’s ecstatic. She’s proud and happy to be able to do this for him. She loves him as a friend. It’s her dearest relationship.”

Forrest’s wife, Tonya Watts, said Rowe was hurt by reports that Jackson was paying her $500,000 to have the child through artificial insemination.

“This is a natural conception. Debbie finds it amazing that people won’t believe that. She told me two years ago, ‘Michael likes girls,’ ” Watts said.

Forrest said the baby “will be raised by Michael. She doesn’t want to have control of it. She said she did this for Michael. They’ll continue the same visiting relationship they’ve always had.

“Debbie denied receiving any money,” he added. “He’s not handing her a check. Obviously he’ll take care of the medical expenses. She can’t afford that.”

Rowe, a shy and decidedly unglamorous divorcee who lives with her two dogs in a luxury apartment building in Van Nuys, Calif., has been in hiding since news of her impending motherhood brought scores of reporters to her door.

Forrest and Watts said they noticed that Rowe was “showing” but didn’t say anything.

When word broke, Rowe was so upset, “she cried. She cried for three or four days straight,” said Watts. “She didn’t want anyone to know until the baby was born. She’s not Madonna. She’s not used to this, the paparazzi.”

So far Rowe has kept mum, but Jackson has confirmed that she is carrying Michael Jackson Jr., and a British tabloid says it has tapes of her in which she waxes ecstatic about the child.

Rowe and Jackson met in 1985 when he arrived at her work place the Beverly Hills clinic of Dr. Arnold Klein, dermatologist to the stars. Jackson was seeking treatment for vitiligo, a skin condition that whitens the skin.

Rowe’s three-year marriage was starting to crumble and would end in divorce in 1990.

November 14 1996

Concert in Sydney . After the show, just after midnight (thurs on the 15th) , Michael marries Debbie Rowe in the presidential suit of the Sheraton-on-the-Park Hotel.

He denies in a press release the news reports claiming that Debbie has been artificially inseminated.

Magic/Madness 14 November 1996

They were duly married at a hotel between Michael’s touring commitments. Afterwards, it was rumoured that Debbie Rowe received $1 million to give birth to Michael’s son Prince Michael Jnr. However, according to a reliable sources in the Jackson camp, Rowe actually received $500,000 –
and not to give birth but rather as a ‘wedding gift’.

Any story that she has a contract with Michael Jackson, and that she has received millions of dollars to bear his children, is simply untrue. Indeed no document has ever surfaced to support the rumour.

‘None of it is true,’ Debbie said when pressed to confirm stories of a deal. ‘ Why won’t people believe me? I would never have his children for money. I am doing it because I am his dear friend.

‘They’re adults,’ Tonya Boyd explains. ‘Say what you want, have any
judgement you like about it, but it’s their life, and they get to live
it whatever way they choose.’

‘They are cordial when they see each other,’ says Tonya Boyd. ‘Like many couples, they have an arrangement that works for them. No one can understand another person’s relationship, I guess. Not really.’

Michael Jackson was still married to Lisa Marie Presley when he first started trying to have a baby with a secret girlfriend!
His lover, Debbie Rowe, says sleeping with Michael was “the weirdest experience of my life” – because his idea of foreplay was to put on a horse’s head or a suit of armour!
But bedding the Gloved One was a thriller, adds the pretty medical assistant – calling Michael an “incredible” lover who left her exhausted.

Debbie also revealed: – She first became pregnant last December – the same month Michael separated from his wife – but miscarried three months later. – The baby boy will be named Michael Jr. – Debbie has agreed to give Michael full custody of their son. – Michael plans to raise the boy in France, and the child will never set foot in the US. – Terrified of kidnappers, the star will hire an army to guard his precious only child.

November 15 1996

Michael & Debbie attend the Australian premiere of Ghosts.

Concert in Sydney (attended by Debbie)

Katherine Jackson interview, November 22 1996

Just a few days after Michael Jackson’s Australian marriage to once-divorced nurse Deborah Rowe, who’s due to bear him a child in February, an enterprising San Diego radio station got a phone interview last weekend, with Michael’s mother, Katherine Jackson.

She says she is looking forward to the birth of her 22nd grandchild, and that she’ll still be friends with Michael’s first bride, Lisa Marie Presley, whom Mrs. Jackson describes as “down to earth.” It all depends on your perspective, I guess. Here’s what else Katherine Jackson had to say about her son’s abrupt nuptials…

Q106, San Diego, California: Was this a surprise for you?

KATHERINE JACKSON: Yes, it was in a way.

Q106: Did you know her, have you met her?

JACKSON: I’ve never met her.

Q106: Did Michael ever talk to you about her?

JACKSON: Oh, sometimes.

Q106: Did he talk to you in a way that you would think maybe, he was in love with her, or one day might want to marry her? Or this would be it?

Michael Jackson’s new bride is a far cry from the glamorous and famous woman his first wife Lisa Marie Presley, was.

Debbie Rowe, 38, is a divorced nurse who, up until marrying Jackson was living in a modest apartment in Van Nuys a not-so-well-heeled suburb of L.A.

Where Lisa Marie favours designer clothes from the likes of Versace,(unreadable) of make-up and regular visits to the hairdresser the new Mrs Jackson prefers basic jeans and T-Shirts and little make up.

She is solidly built and wears her blonde hair free flowing.

And while Lisa Marie gets around in limos, Debbie Rowe relies on her Harley-Davidson motorbike to get around Los Angeles.

Rowe was single and childless after divorcing her husband of six years a computer technician, whom she married in the early 80s.

She filed for bankruptcy in 1989 and was living in an (unreadable)-a-month apartment until marrying Jackson this week.

Jackson and Rowe met 15 years ago, when the superstar first came to see Rowe’s boss Dr.Arnold Klein, a Beverly Hills dermatologist about his rare skin disorder.

She has travelled all over the world with him on concert tours and their close friendship is said to have been a thorn in the side of Lisa Marie Presley during her marriage to Jackson.

Friends say Rowe’s apartement is covered in wall to wall posters of Jackson as well as memorabilia from her time spent travelling with him.

It is claimed that this is the second pregnancy to Jackson for Rowe.

She is said to have fallen pregnant in December last year, only to have a miscarriage in February.

Jackson has vehemently denied that Rowe became pregnant by artificial insemination. Such reports were “completely false and irresponsible.”

“He (Jackson) trust her like no one else,” a US magazine quotes a friend of Rowe’s saying.

“She is devoted to him. She has been an hand to soothe him. She has seen him at his worst, and his lowest, at his most embarrassing. She saw him humiliated by his illness. He has nothing to hide from her”

Rowe graduated from Hollywood High in 1978 and within 5 years had married.

When news of the pregnancy emerged friends of the couple strongly denied that Jackson had paid Rowe 3 million to carry his child.

“No money involved,” said one. “Debbie is just doing a nice thing for somebody. She genuinely loves him but as a brother. The baby is a gift of love.”

WHEN MICHAEL JACKSON DECIDES to get married, he doesn’t exactly wait for June to roll around. On the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 12, Debbie Rowe—six months pregnant and apparently feeling it—said goodbye to her two beloved dogs, left in the care of neighbors in her Van Nuys, Calif., apartment complex, and boarded a jet bound for Australia. When she touched down in Sydney—Wednesday afternoon local time, after 14 hours in the air—the 37-year-old dermatologist’s assistant was whisked by limo to the Sheraton on the Park hotel. There, she disappeared into the $2,750-a-night Presidential Suite and rested. The following day, Jackson performed to a sellout crowd of 40,000 at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Then, around midnight, as the singer joined 30 or so associates at a post-concert party in a private room downstairs, Rowe slipped into something white and put on her makeup. At about 2 a.m., Jackson and a few pals made their way upstairs. The superstar sat down at a grand piano in the two-bedroom suite and played the Wagner march known to millions as “Here Comes the Bride” while Rowe entered and, after 15 years as Jackson’s friend, became officially embroiled in his strange—and increasingly troubled—world. “Please respect our privacy,” Jackson, 38, said in a release after the event, “and let us enjoy this wonderful and exciting time.”

How many days had elapsed since Jackson confirmed that he and Rowe were expecting a child? Ten. How many questions about the groom had been resolved by the hasty civil ceremony? Zero. The singer’s second marriage happened so fast, in fact, many people didn’t even realize he was already divorced from Lisa Marie Presley, 28, whom he wed in May of 1994 and separated from 20 months later. Their split became official last August, with no regrets on either side. “They fell out of love,” says Presley’s attorney John Coale. “Anything she feels is going to remain private.”

Rowe is already finding out how hard it is to know both privacy and the King of Pop. From the moment she was thrust into the spotlight by Jackson’s announcement that she was expecting, she has had to live with speculation that her baby is in part a public-relations ploy. Friends of Jackson’s insist that the marriage and pregnancy have nothing to do with his reported $15 to $20 million settlement of a child molestation suit in 1994, a just-published book about that case, or a new civil case being pressed in Santa Barbara (Calif.) superior court by the alleged victim’s father. Still, even Rowe’s father has expressed skepticism. Last week, Gordon Rowe, 67, a retired cargo pilot who lives in Cyprus, was quoted at length in News of the World, the racy British tabloid that reportedly broke the story of Jackson’s involvement with Debbie earlier this month. As published in NOW, Rowe knew his daughter was friendly with Jackson but was stunned when she told him of her pregnancy.

“I said, ‘Isn’t this the same man who was accused of child abuse?'” Rowe reportedly told Debbie. As published in NOW, Rowe said Debbie dismissed the allegations. “She said, ‘None of the charges against him were proved.'” She reportedly did not, however, dismiss reports—denied by the Jackson camp—of artificial insemination. “Isn’t he capable of fathering a child like anyone else?” asked her father. “She laughed and said, ‘Michael doesn’t do anything like anyone else. Dad, you have no idea who the real Michael Jackson is. He is the most compassionate person I have met in my life.’ ”

Rowe’s father has since issued a general retraction of his NOW statements. Her friends insist that Rowe is acting out of the goodness of her heart. “I know she doesn’t want the publicity,” says Rowe’s pal Mary Colandro, 35, a tennis coach who has lived next door to Rowe for nine years. “She’s done all this for Michael. She told us she was having the baby for Michael as a friend.” She also told neighbors she was not artificially inseminated. “She said it was natural, and I believe her,” says Colandro. “On the other hand, she is Michael’s good friend. She is very loyal to him.”

Until recently, Rowe’s life was hardly the stuff of which cover stories are made. Born in Spokane, Wash., to Gordon Rowe and Barbara Chilcutt in 1958, Deborah Jeanne Rowe had moved to California by the time she was 15. About that time, her parents were divorced, and, according to NOW, her father took off for the Middle East. Soon after graduating from Hollywood High School in 1977, Rowe began working in the Beverly Hills office of dermatologist Arnold Klein. One former patient is still grateful for the care Rowe gave her father. “She held his hand during the surgery,” says the patient, “and called to follow up. She is the right hand to Dr. Klein. She really kept the business going.”

In 1982, Rowe married Richard Edelman, then a 30-year-old teacher at Hollywood High. The couple moved into a condominium in Van Nuys, where Edelman started his own computer consulting business. According to a pharmacist with whom Rowe had developed a friendship over the years, Edelman was “too quiet” for Rowe, a woman who, he fondly notes, “used language like a trooper but was always very pleasant.” By the time their marriage fell apart in 1988, a major problem seemed to be money. In 1989, Rowe and Edelman filed for bankruptcy, with assets of less than $40,000 and debts of more than $73,000.

To friends, Rowe has always seemed a good-hearted woman, most comfortable in jeans and T-shirts and not much makeup. She has two dogs, a golden retriever named Cuervo, after the Mexican tequila, and Harley, a German shepherd named for the motorcycle Rowe loves to ride when she’s not at the wheel of a truck. “If anyone has problems, she handles them,” says Colandro. “She’s a great rescuer.”

No doubt Jackson saw these qualities some 15 years ago, when he first met Rowe at the office of Dr. Klein, who was reportedly treating Jackson for vitiligo, a condition that causes skin discoloration through loss of pigment. Over the years, she and Dr. Klein accompanied Jackson on various world tours, and Rowe befriended the superstar. A few posters of Jackson popped up on her apartment walls, but no one was likely to hear Jackson’s “Billie Jean” blaring from Rowe’s stereo. “She seemed to prefer New Age,” says Colandro, “or easy listening.”

Though Rowe dated several men in the years after her divorce, pals say Jackson wasn’t one of them. And as far as anyone knew, she was not in a relationship last spring, when Rowe surprised her pharmacist friend with the news that she was expecting a child. “I’m doing a favor,” the pharmacist recalls her saying, “for a good friend.”

Most of her neighbors knew that the good friend was Jackson. He had just split with Presley in January, less than seven months after telling Prime-Time Live that he and Lisa Marie wanted to start a family. Apparently, Rowe was ready to give Jackson the child Presley did not. At first their plan took an unhappy turn, friends say, when Rowe miscarried last spring. “She was really sad for about a week,” says Colandro. But her pharmacist friend says she quickly bounced back. “She’s that kind of a gal,” he explains. “She doesn’t get heartbroken.”

As the world now knows, another attempt to conceive a child proved successful. But would Rowe raise the baby in her $840-a-month, one-bedroom apartment? Or would Jackson take custody and raise their child on his 2,700-acre Santa Ynez Valley Neverland ranch, complete with zoo and amusement park? How would the couple interact over time? Would money change hands?

When it came to marriage, Jackson seemed to want to act first and figure out the details later. A week before the Sydney wedding, his lawyers contacted the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Christchurch, New Zealand. (Jackson had show dates in Auckland on Nov. 10 and 11.) They filled out registration forms for Jackson and Rowe and asked marriage celebrant Anne Stubbersfield to be ready on short notice—which never came. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to marry him,” she says with a laugh. “New Zealand could have been put on the map.”

In the end, of course, that honor went to Australia, where, as Elton John told talk show host Rosie O’Donnell last week, “all the loonies get married.” (Now openly gay, Elton married a sound engineer, Renate Blauel, in Sydney in 1984; they divorced four years later in Britain.) But how loony is Jackson, really? If ever he could have been described as blissfully wacky, that no longer seems to apply. Three years after he was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy in 1993, Jackson is still dealing with the fallout. Five former employees are suing him for wrongful termination, claiming they were threatened, harassed and forced to quit during the police investigation into the charges. A book on the case by author Victor Gutierrez—filled with legal papers, bank statements and photos—was published in Chile in September and has sold some 5,000 copies Stateside. And though he negotiated the multimillion-dollar settlement from Jackson in 1994, the father of the boy Jackson allegedly had molested recently hit the singer with another $60 million lawsuit.

According to one of the father’s lawyers, James E. Prosser, Jackson violated the terms of the settlement, which required him to make no public statements about the case, when he told Prime Time Live’s Diane Sawyer last year that the accusations were “lies, lies, lies, lies.” In addition, the suit claims that anti-Semitic lyrics in Jackson’s HIStory album (which were later changed by Jackson, who issued a public apology) were aimed at the boy and his father.

Jackson is, in other words, a man who could use a “great rescuer” like Rowe—and his friends know it. “She’s a really gentle person, very loving,” says Stephen Millard, marketing director at Epic International Artists, Jackson’s label in Australia. Adds another associate: “Lisa Marie had a mind of her own. Debbie is not involved in the limelight. She is very easygoing.”

So easygoing that she spent her first day as Mrs. Michael Jackson on her own—while her hubby, surrounded by his usual entourage of associates and kids, cuddled a koala at Sydney’s Taronga Park Zoo. Later, Jackson went, without Rowe, to the Australian preview of his new 35-minute film “Ghosts”, a horror/music video. At the entrance to the theatre, the singer was surrounded by fans, one of whom gave him a pair of blue baby booties, which he clung to during the screening. Rowe remained out of sight for the next few days as she, Jackson and several colleagues traveled from Sydney to Brisbane to Melbourne. Nor was she at the hospitals he visited, the events he attended or the concerts he gave. “She’s six months pregnant,” says a spokesperson for Jackson’s concert promoter. “She wants to rest.”

Or hide. Rowe has been getting a crash course in what it means to do “a favor” for a famous friend—as have many of her pals back home. In Van Nuys, one old buddy has turned down tabloid offers adding up to $20,000 for private details of Rowe’s life. “I guess it’s about integrity,” says her friend. “But it’s hard,” he adds with a laugh.

His friend Debbie doesn’t have it easy either, being married to a man who once had too little childhood and now may have way too much money and freedom. If Jackson wants the world’s sympathy, he has a tough row to hoe, but if it’s advice he’s after, there’s no shortage of givers. In Christchurch, Anne Stubbersfield may have lost her shot at performing Jackson’s ceremony, but she still has words of wisdom. He should “think seriously” about his future as a husband and a father. Take classes in parenting. Get prepared. “You’ve got to be normal now,” says Stubbersfield. In his own way, Michael seems to be trying.

Mr and Mrs. “King of Pop” are currently on a weeklong rendezvous in a some secluded European hideaway- a country known for its divine chocolate. They are actively performing their maritial duties, in hopes of bringing forh another little Jackson. I hear that Michael “just loves” these romantic vacations with his wife.

I also hear that Debbie intends to slap serveral of the supermarket tabs with lawsuits demanding retractions on their stories about her relationship with Michael.

Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe were married on November 14, 1996, in Sydney, Australia. Reports soon followed in the Australian tabloids that Debbie was asking for a divorce. At length, tired of immodest speculation in the media, Michael and Debbie issued a press release on January 6, 1997, in which they said, “Deborah has been extremely upset by the flagrant fabrications and utter lies that have been published about her and the false statements attributed to her father which he never made. Deborah’s father supports her decisions 100 percent. Not inclined to respond to false and vicious reports, Deborah is adamant about again setting the record straight that Michael is the father of the child, the pregnancy is not the result of artificial means, that she has not been paid to have Michael’s baby, and that she is not seeking or filing for a divorce.”

February 13 1997

Debbie Rowe gives birth to Prince Michael Joseph Jackson Jr at the Cedar Sinai Medical Center of Los Angeles. Michael attends the birth and soon takes his son to Neverland. Grace Rwaramba and Pia Bhatti are hired as Prince’s nannies and they move to Neverland with Omer Bhatti.

I want a little Jackson No 2.(News) – Sunday Mirror May 11, 1997

Baby-mad Michael Jackson wants a second child with his wife Debbie Rowe. Jackson, who is in France with their three-month-old son Prince, has flown Debbie to Paris to plead his case – and is also said to have had his frozen sperm flown to her in Los Angeles. But Debbie is refusing to have another child unless she can live with Jackson as a “proper family”. A friend said: “Debbie doesn’t want to be a baby-making machine. She really cares for Michael, and wants him as a proper husband.”

Reading Eagle, May 19, 1997

Michael Jackson and his 3-month-old son, Prince Michael Jackson Jr., reportedly are living in France without the child’s mother. People magazine says Debbie Rowe has returned to her job as an assistant to a Beverly Hills dermatologist. She is living in the same Van Nuys apartment she had before becoming pregnant and marrying Michael Jackson. Jackson reportedly calls his wife twice daily from France, where he bought an estate. Rowe has been flying there every weekend to visit, People says.

March 25 1997

British magazine OK gets a world exclusive by publishing the first ever official pictures of MIchael & Debbie with their son Prince (at Neverland) accompanied by a candid interview of the couple.

OK Magazine Interview April 1997

Interviewer: Michael, how does it feel to be a father?

Michael: It was an incredibly joyful experience. I’m in bliss 24 hours a day.

Interviewer: Can you talk us through the birth of your son?

Michael: It’s hard to take it step by step, but the snapshots in my mind from the birth show our excitement and nervousness. Debbie was so strong throughout the delivery. There were shouts of joy when the baby was born. I couldn’t believe the miracle I had witnessed. It was unbelievable!

Interviewer: Michael, describe the relationship between yourself and Debbie?

Michael: Debbie and I love each other for all the reasons you will never see on stage or in pictures. I fell for the beautiful, unpretentious, giving person that she is, and she fell for me, just being me.

Interviewer: Debbie, what are you current feelings for Michael?

Debbie: I love him even more now than before our son was born. Fatherhood has brought out a very protective streak in him. He is so loving and strong.

Interviewer: What is the boy’s name? Why is he so named and which of you does he look like the most?

Michael: His name is Prince Michael Junior. My grandfather and great-grandfather were both named Prince, so we have carried on that tradition and now we have a third Prince in the family.

Debbie: He’s so beautiful! I think he has my eyes.

Interviewer: Michael, among all your life’s glittering achievements, how does fatherhood rate?

Michael: Words can’t describe it. There is no miracle in life that compares with watching your son come into the world.

Interviewer: Has the baby smiled or responded in any way to the two of you yet?

Michael: He smiles all the time and his eyes twinkle when I sing to him. He definitely knows my voice. Debbie tickles his chin and he giggles.

Interviewer: Debbie, does Michael change the baby’s nappies, get up in the middle of the night to feed him and do his share of the chores?

Debbie: Yes, Michael does everything. He loves being involved in every aspect of caring for the baby. He is such a wonderful father, feeding him, holding him and of course, singing to him.

Interviewer: Debbie, you have married and had a baby with the most famous man on earth. What effect has that had on you?

Debbie: I have married and had a baby with the man I will always love and I am on top of the world. The only time I feel sad is when I see quotes attributed to me that I never said. Or when I hear late night comedians taking cheap shots at my husband when they are not true. Don’t believe 99% of the garbage you read or hear. I know that we will be under increasing public scrutiny and I don’t look forward to that, but I know that will always be a part of being married to Michael.

Interviewer: Michael, you so rarely give interviews. What is the one thing you would like to say to your fans at this time?

Michael: Thank you to all of my fans for understanding how important it is to me to protect my family from the public eye. I have lived in a “fishbowl” all my life and I want my son to live a normal life. You’ve stood by me throughout my career and now you share my greatest joy. I love you.

Michael: I want him to grow up surrounded by love and family, to receive the best education I can provide him with, to discover and develop his talents, and to use his resources to make life better for those less fortunate than he.

Interviewer: Are you preventing Debbie from seeing the child?

Michael: No, that is completely false. We have been together as a family since the birth of our son, and we’ve cherished every moment as a family.

Interviewer: Michael, what has been your family’s reaction to the birth?

Michael: They are all very excited. I’m already getting lots of tips and advice about schools and such.

Interviewer: What sort of dad will you try to be?

Michael: The best! My father was always there for us through the stardom of the Jackson Five and through many of the ups and downs that followed. I too will always be there for my son. It’s the most important thing in the world to me.

Interviewer: Debbie, what are your family’s feelings about Michael?

Debbie: They’re crazy about him. They were delighted to discover how warm and genuine he is.

Interviewer: And how would you describe Michael’s strengths as a father?

Debbie: He’s very patient and protective. He never rushes what he’s doing with the baby. I was very proud of how tough he was about our privacy. He’s incredibly strong.

Interviewer: Michael, are you still close to your family? How often do you see your parents, brothers and sisters? Have they met your baby yet?

Michael: We talk and see each other all the time. We recently had a big ‘get-together’ where all the cousins met one another for the first time.

Interviewer: We believe the child’s godmother may be Elizabeth Taylor. What is it that draws you to Elizabeth? Many would call it an unlikely friendship. What do you have in common?

Michael: Elizabeth knew many of the things I went through growing up in the spotlight. I can say a few words or just sigh sometimes, and she knows what I’m feeling. It was wonderful to find someone who understood me so well. I pray for her, and I want her to share the joy of my son’s birth for many years to come.

Interviewer: What sort of gifts have you received for Prince Michael Junior?

Michael: We’ve received some fantastic gifts; wonderful treasures, stuffed animals, toys and baby clothes from around the world. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all my wonderful fans for helping to welcome our baby into the world!

Interviewer: Michael, what are Debbie’s strengths as a mother?

Michael: Debbie is a very strong and caring woman. She’s a wonderful mother!

Interviewer: Can we expect a song about your son on your new album?

Michael: The birth of my son has been very inspirational to me artistically, and there will definitely be a song in the future.

Prince Michael Jr is taken to a Paris hotel suit with his nannies so that his daddy can join him after each concert of the European tour. Debbie also flies every week end to spend time with Michael & their son.

Jun 22, 1997

*So What’s new on the Michael Jackson/Debbie Rowe front? Mr. and Mrs. “King of Pop” are currently on a weeklong rendezvous in some secluded European hideaway – a country known for its divine chocolate. (We can say no more!) They are actively performing their martial duties, in hopes of bringing forth another little Jackson. I hear that Michael “just loves” these romantic vacations with his wife.

I also hear that Debbie intends to slap several of the supermarket tabs with lawsuits, demanding retractions on their stories about her relationship with Michael.

And finally, a source close to Jackson sends word that Debbie wishes I wouldn’t “decry” Michael so much Gee, I think we’ve been kinder to Michael Jackson than anybody else in the press. I always, always emphasize that no matter what rumors swirl, Michael has never been found guilty of any crime. Just the other day I reported how well his ” Blood on the Dance Floor” album is doing in Europe. But I was also duty-bound to report that it has flopped in the United States.That’s not “decrying” Michael, just telling the truth.

June 27 + 29 1997

Concerts at the Pard Des Princes in Paris (attended by Debbie)

July 2 1997

Michael takes Debbie & Prince to Vienna where he performs in concert

July 4+6 1997

Concerts in Munich (attended by Debbie)

July 6-10 1997

Michael takes Debbie & Prince to

July 10 1997

Concert in Sheffield (attended by Debbie)

July 11 1997

While a pregnant Debbie returns to the states Michael goes to London where he is joined by his ex wife Lisa Marie

The single HIstory/Ghost is released in Europe .

Toledo Blade, Jul 14, 1997

WE LOVE to tell you the latest on MICHAEL JACKSON and DEBBIE ROWE. I guess that’s because we know an insider in the Jackson camp who loves to tell us. Sharing — that’s what it’s all about. Anyway, Debbie, MJ and baby Prince continue their royal progress through Europe, while Michael plays to sold-out stadiums. Although Debbie is not at all a grandiose type — “just a home girl,” as she often jokes — she can’t help being thrilled by the nearly royal reception she receives whenever she’s spotted by the fans. ”Its almost a Princess Diana thing”, says my source, who has witness the frenzy.` Debbie’s boss, dermatologist Dr. Arnie Klein, is missing her presence in his office, so she will return to her ordinary day job in LA as soon as Michael finishes his tour. As for another Jackson baby, our acute and observant source says, “I believe No. 2 will be on its way.Debbie herself seems totally happy and fulfilled. “We are really in love,” she said recently, “and Michael has been so romantic.’

ET Tonight, July 15th 1997

Michael’s personal photographer John Isaak was also interviewed by Entertainment Tonight yesterday. Commenting on media rumors that Michael’s marriage to Debbie is not happy, he said, “It’s all lies. A lot of it, they just make up stories and that bothers me, and I am sure it bothers Michael so much.” They showed photographs he took of Michael and his son Prince never seen in US before, including one of just Michael’s large hand holding Prince’s tiny fist.

Jul 17, 1997

They split last year, but Michael Jackson and former wife Lisa Marie Presley were hand-in-hand Tuesday night returning to his hotel after his sell-out London concert. Presley stood at the edge of the stage through the show at Wembley stadium. Afterward, the two returned to the Carlton Towers hotel and Jackson waved to fans.

July 17, 1997

Lisa Marie Presley stood stageside at Michael Jackson’s Tuesday performance in London’s Wembley Stadium and afterward returned with him hand-in-hand to the Carlton Towers Hotel. Current wife Deborah Rowe – nowhere in sight.

Daily Record, July 26, 1997

Michael Jackson is a hunk in the bunk, according to his wife Debbie Rowe. Speaking for the first time about their bizarre marriage, Debbie said Michael Jackson lives to make love round the clock. Debbie, 38, said she doesn’t give a hoot that he and first wife Lisa Marie Presley spent time together in London recently.

And she revealed he wants a bunch of kids and plans to name them ALL Prince, just like the baby boy she had for him.

Fun-loving nurse Debbie insists she and Jackson can hardly keep their hands off each other and have sex whenever they can. “I can’t wait to see him again,” she said. “We’re going to stay all day and night in bed – I can’t wait.”

Sep 20, 1997

Odd popman Michael Jackson and usually absent wife Debbie Rowe are expecting another baby, according to London tabloids. Jackson supposedly was so pleased that he immediately gave her a $168000 Mercedes S600.

September 22 1997

Singer Michael Jackson’s publicist denies reports that Jackson’s wife, Debbie Rowe, is expecting to give birth to the couple’s second child in December.

Last week, the “New York Post” reported the story, and carried a photo of Rowe wearing a suggestively loose-fitting shirt, which seemingly fueled the reports, yet doesn’t actually mean anything.

Rowe also reportedly quit her job as an assistant to Jackson’s Beverly Hills dermatologist last week, six months after marrying one of the world’s wealthiest entertainers.

The couple’s first child, a boy named Prince, was born last February.

Sep 24, 1997

Recent photos of Debbie Rowe show a noticeable tummy bulge, leading to speculation that she’s as much as six months’ pregnant. But gossip maven Liz Smith says somebody in the know insists that Rowe isn’t expecting. “Debbie is a big, healthy girl,” the source told Smith.”At her trimmest, she’s somewhat Valkyrian in build.” In other words, it ain’t over till the fat lady gives birth, which the source says isn’t happening “anytime soon,” even though the couple “are trying, as the coy phrase goes.” Their first child, Prince Michael Jackson Jr Their first child, Prince Michael Jackson Jr., is 7 months old.

Oct, 20 1997

MJ, LMP, his parents and her children in South Africa.

Victoria Advocate Oct 20, 1997

But did you know that Debbie Rowe, the dermatologist’s-assistant-turned-King-of-Pop-spouse was fuming at photos of the event? Rowe, who is reportedly pregnant with Jackson’s second child, was left in the dark about the trip. The entertainer was snapped with former wife Lisa Marie who was accompanying him on the tour with her two children by previous hub Danny Keough – Danielle, 8, and Benjamin, and Michael and Lisa Marie were holding hands and inseparable the whole time, says the Star tabloid.

Enquirer, October 21, 1997

MICHAEL JACKSON has reportedly begged LISA MARIE PRESLEY to give marriage a second try. The king of pop whisked his ex-wife away for a hush-hush second honeymoon in exotic South Africa. And during the romantic getaway with Lisa Marie’s daughter DANIELLE, Jackson popped the question to her. A source told American tabloid THE STAR, “He’s really excited about the possibility of starting over with Lisa Marie. While they were in Africa they both realized how much they had missed each other.” Michael’s kid sister, a great friend of Lisa Marie, played matchmaker to bring the couple together. And despite Jackson being married, his wife DEBBIE ROWE was unaware of the they secret tryst at the Palace Hotel, in Johannesburg. Jackson and Lisa Marie stunned the world when they married in the Dominican Republic. But 20 months later the fairy tale union ended in divorce. Even though Jackson has fathered a baby with his new wife, Rowe, he has always remained close to ELVIS PRESLEY’s little girl.

20th November 1997

LIfe magazine has an exclusive photo essay hitting stands Monday- Michael Jackson, posing with his baby boy, Prince, for the cover. And many pages inside.

LIfe’s photos are taken by the great Harry Benson: Michael is awash in gentle light and shown performing all sorts of Daddy-like tasks, changing diapers, etc. And there are even photos of Michael’s bedroom, which one enters by passing under campy Boy and Girl Scout mannequins. Prominent on the wall of this sanctum is a painting of Jesus-the traditional Anglo-Saxon blue-eyed version, with the halo and the blood-red Sacred Heart. Jackson, naturally, had complete control of which photos Life used.

The text, by David Friend, is also revealing. Michael’s voice “quavers” when he speaks of ex-wife Lisa Marie, and the writer observes that Michael seems to “pine for her.” And Michael implies that Lisa Marie would still like to have a baby with him, “She’d like to, yes,” he says, before putting a finger to his lips. “Shhhh.” (Michael keeps a magazine photo of Lisa Marie at age 5, with her father, Elvis, framed on the table of his nightstand. ” This is the age when I first met LIsa Marie. I’ve known her ever since.”)

OK, so where does all this leave the current Mrs. Jackson, the infrequently seen Debbie Rowe? Michael insists they do spend quality time together, watching cartoons, playing with the baby, and she has been out on tour with him “a lot.” Debbie is no longer working for Dr. Arnie Klein, leaving herself free for Michael.

Michael plays coy as to why Debbie isn’t present for the photo shoot, hinting that her absence might have to do with having to “take it easy.” Then he whispers, “There’s a new one on the way.”

My inside-the-Jackson-camp sources insist Debbie is pregnant, after months of rumors. Antoher little Jackson is on the way. And they say Michael and Debbie aleady know the sex of their upcoming addition – it’s a girl.

Time will tell, Meanwhile, Michael, from all appearances, seems to be a devoted father.

P..S. ON Michael Jackson. Michael and his wife, Debbie Rowe, were together last Wednesday when our story broke that they are expecting a baby girl. The life magazine article in which Michael more or less tipped the world to his “expectancy” (though not to the sex of his child) was read over the phone to him Wednesday night. The people at Life believe he was pleased with their effort.

So how did the article by Harry Benson and David Friend come about?

Michael himself phoned Friend about a month ago to congratulate LIfe on its “Life Legends” speicial issue. One thing led to another and pretty soon David had an exclusive interview, and Harry was warming up his cameras. These Lifers say Michael made no demands and does not have any rights over the photos, nor did he ask for any. “He trusted us,” says David.

Life got an usual tour of Michael’s bedroom at his Neverland rack hear Santa Barbara, Calif., including a look into his closet to see all his many toys, his gittering wardrobe and his amazing belts and hats. Writer Friend says the thing that he had not known was that Macaulay Culkin is the godfather of Michael’s son, Prince.

Nov 22, 1997

Michael Jackson confirms in the Life magazine issue out Monday that wife, Debbie Rowe, is pregnant with their second. Says work has hindered their home lives, (“It’s very hard. We haven’t been able to spend time as a family. Not at all”). Says Wife No. 1, Lisa Marie Presley is sorry she never had his kid (“She regrets it. She said so,” saysJackson).

THEY’LL LOVE PARIS IN THE SPRINGTIME JAX, WIFE TO NAME GIRL AFTER CITY OF LIGHT, Nov 27, 1997

The pop star’s nurse wife, Debbie Rowe Jackson, also told KNBC-TV in Los Angeles she doesn’t feel threatened by her hubby’s friendships with other women, including ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley and Elizabeth Taylor. “My friendship with him is the most important thing to me,” the normally reclusive Rowe Jackson said. “And if this marriage gets in the way of that friendship, then we’ll put the marriage aside. But I want to go on as friends.”

Rowe Jackson told the station she still lives in L.A. and often visits Jackson and their 9-month-old son, Prince Michael Jackson, at the Neverland Ranch about 100 miles away. And the King of Pop was reportedly so thrilled he was going to become a pop again he gave his wife a $168,000 Mercedes.

Paris Michael Katherine Jackson is scheduled to debut in May.

“He’s picking out clothes already to dress her up,” she added. “I wanted to name her Michael after Michael, but Michael said no.”

She called the secretive singer a doting dad.

“Whenever the baby is awake, he is with the baby the whole time,” she said. “When the baby is napping, that’s when he steals away to work, to write music, to dance.”

She said they may try to have another baby after Paris is born.

“He loves kids,” she said. “I hope we have lots of kids together.”

Her first pregnancy, announced before the wedding, was met with worldwide disbelief, and critics called it a publicity stunt to divert attention from Jackson’s child-molestation scandal.

Jackson denied tabloid reports that Rowe was artificially inseminated and paid $528,000 to have his baby. But her dad, Gordon, said the new mom told him she had been artificially inseminated.

Transcript of KNBC News Interview, November 28 1997

Kelly Lange [of KNBC news]: She is Mrs. Michael Jackson, Debbie Rowe. She has never given and interview about her marriage or her baby until now. Tonight Debbie Rowe speaks exclusively with our Chuck Henry about her life, her baby son, and Michael. Chuck Henry got the story and he’s here now with all the details.

Introduction:
Chuck Henry Interviewer

Debbie Rowe works as a nurse in a Dr’s Office. Keeps her job, goes to work every morning, she really is an ordinary woman. But, she’s involved in an extrodinary situation.

Debbie: I haven’t abandoned him, a lot of people think I have abandoned him. I haven’t abandoned him. I haven’t abandoned my husband.I’m there! It’s not like I’m that far away, I can be there in 13 hours.Interviewer: And Debbie flies to Paris twice a month for a weekend visit. Do you miss your son?Debbie: Sure. And I miss Michael a lot too. But I don’t feel like I have to be there. I don’t think being there 24 hours a day makes a better relationship.Interviewer: Debbie says there was no prenuptual agreement, and no financial payoff for her carrying Jackson’s child. Which she says was concieved naturally.Debbie: I would never do this for money. I did this because I love him. That’s the only reason I did this.Interviewer: Giving all the stories about Michael Jackson does Debbie feel totally comfortable about this arrangement?Debbie: Obviously I wouldn’t have had a child if …..Interviewer: And you wouldn’t leave your child….Debbie: And I wouldn’t leave our child there…..Interviewer: If any of those things were true.Debbie: If any of them were true. If I even suspected any of them were true. He feeds him, he changes his diapers, he reads to him, he sings to him, if he’s on the phone the baby’s in his arms, if he’s having a meeting the baby’s there. He takes naps with him. He, he, he’s….the…..I don’t need to be there. I don’t need to be there. Cause Michael’s…..I’ve got nothing to do.Interviewer: On her visits to Paris Debbie says the three of them just…..Debbie: Get up in the morning. Watch cartoons…cause I like cartoons….play with the baby all day….just hang out.Interviewer: Having the baby was her idea. It was a subject that was talked about before Jackson’s marriage to Lisa Marie Presley.Debbie: He did love her very, very much, still does. Still cares about her very, very much. But, um, it didn’t work out. And, uh, he was devastated.Interviewer: After the divorce, Debbie, who met Jackson while working in a Dr’s Office again brought up the subject of children.Debbie: Well, I said, I said, you know, my offer still stands….Interviewer: So, if you want to be a parent ….Debbie: So I said, I said…If you want to be a daddy…I want to do it.Interviewer: A week after the story broke Debbie got a call from Jackson…Debbie: Asked me if I would get married to him, and I said “you really want to?” And he said, “yeah”. And I say, “that’s not gonna affect our friendship? We’re still gonna be friends, right?” And he said, “I promise!” And I say, “the first time this marriage interfers with our friendship, we’re goin’ back to being friends, and forget this other stuff.” And he says, “it won’t happen, I promise!”Interviewer: So now you’ve had the baby,Debbie: It was the world’s best experience.Interviewer: And through it all, Michael never left her side.Debbie: He did not let go of my hand the whole time. It’s like no, no go see what he looks like. No I’m not gonna leave ya, no you have to go, you have to go!Interviewer: Do you want to have more children?Debbie: YeahInterviewer: Does Michael want to have more children?Debbie: YeahInterviewer: You will have more children?Debbie: We hope so, yeah.Interviewer: Sooner, Later?Debbie: Well, depends on our scheduling. (giggle)Interviewer: Interesting story! Debbie says that she and Michael also plan to have a home together….someday.Debbie: People say this is your job. It is not my job, it is not my duty. And he understands that…and he understands that I need my independence that I still need to be Debbie.Interviewer: Yes, she is Mrs. Michael Jackson. Yes, she is the mother of a 14-week old baby. So why isn’t she living full-time with her little boy?Debbie: We’re untradional people. He works there and I…I work here. And I think that it’s better that a baby’s with his parent whether it be his mom or his dad more than the child would be with a nanny. If the baby were here he’d be with a nanny, because I do work…every day.
Interviewer: Now, I notice that there are no pictures of the baby anywhere in this apartment. Why is that?Debbie: Well, my apartment had been broken into and pictures were stolen of Michael and I. I don’t want that to happen again. I also am basically a very selfish person when it comes to certain things. And this is one of them. I don’t want to have to share my child with the way he looks, or what he looks like, or adorable moments with anybody.Interviewer: Debbie says there are just a few people that either of them can really trust, so they end up living a very quiet life together.Debbie: I don’t like to go out to dinner….I don’t like to go to affairs and things like that. I like to stay home and I like to spend time with him and the baby.Interviewer: Do you consider yourself Michael Jackson’s best friend?Debbie: I consider him MY best friend. I would hope I’m one of his closest friends.Interviewer: But Debbie also says that anyone who knows her, knows that money is the last thing on her mind. She says that she and Michael have no financial arrangements whatsoever. She also says that they may have another child.Interviewer: First of all, lets address the speculation. Debbie Rowe says she was not paid to have Jackson’s child, this child was conceived the old fashion way, and there was no pre-nuptial agreement. Debbie Rowe is probably unlike any woman Michael Jackson has ever known. Michael Jackson’s wife loves to ride her Harley. An outspoken woman who is independent and self reliant.Interviewer: Have you ever got Michael Jackson on this thing?Debbie: Yes, a couple of times.Interviewer: Why is it that you and Michael don’t live together?Debbie: I’m really independent and Michael understands that. And I’m really fortunate to have a husband who does understands that…who knows that I need to work and I need to have my own self…because he is so big and he is so Michael. I don’t need to live with him 24 hours a day. He’s working right now. When he comes home we’ll have time and we’ll be together more. I don’t wanna give up my job. I…I don’t wanna do that. I don’t wanna be that…part of that lifestyle.Interviewer: For Debbie not being with her 14 week old son is not a bad thing.Debbie: It is unusual…but, I don’t think it’s weird.Interviewer: There are no pictures of the baby anywhere in the apartment. Why is that?Debbie: No…well, my apartment had been broken into and pictures were stolen of Michael and I. I don’t want that to happen again.Interviewer: What would you say to people that would say…well, you and Michael must have had some sort of a financial arrangement. That this was the way it was always meant to be. That you were gonna have the baby…Debbie: Money….I don’t need money. I would never…I would never do this for money. I did this because I love him. Michael Jackson is an entertainer. What he does on stage is everyone’s business. What he does with me is my business. Our life is our business and no one else’s.Interviewer: This week tabloid papers are once again speculating. This time they are speculating that Mrs. Jackson is pregnant again. She says that is simply not true.

Life Magazine, December, 1997

Even Debbie has acknowledged that Michael is still smitten. “He cares about her very much, but it didn’t work out and he was devastated,” she has said. “He loved her very much. Still does.”

Michael’s Women

DEBBIE ROWE, aka Debbie Jackson, wife of Michael Jackson, is ho-humming over recent tabloid stories that had her husband getting back together with his first wife, Lisa Marie Presley. It was at Debbie’s urging that Lisa Marie joined them in South Africa recently. “After all,” says our Jackson source, “they are all very close friends.” Oh, it’s so terribly sophisticated and civilized and Noel Coward-like. When Debbie heard that Michael had supposedly remarried Lisa in Johannesburg, her lighthearted reaction was that Michael was not, to her knowledge, a Mormon!

No word yet on any new Jackson progeny, but Debbie and Michael have welcomed an addition to the family- a beautiful German shepherd puppy.

They are just your average young couple in love with all the usual accoutrements- kids, pets, castles, a famous former wife and a gazillion bucks.

“To try and prevent some of the taboo, you know if you have a child out of wedlock. The kids were gonna have it hard enough as it was. They didn’t need to have that label placed upon them, like their father had so many placed upon him. They shouldn’t. If there’s one way we could remove it or try to make it what people thought ‘normal’.”

Rowe was quoted in the tab as saying that she and the Gloved One had sex but didn’t conceive. “Michael then said that artificial insemination would be a foolproof way of doing it and he was proven right,” she reportedly said.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Mar 9, 1998

So what in blue blazes is going on between Michael Jackson and ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley? The odd couple want all of us to think there may be romance afoot. On Valentine’s Day, King Michael and his princess Lisa arrived at Hollywood’s trendy Ivy restaurant without reservations. Michael, wearing his now-legendary surgical mask, was the usual object of frenzied gossip, finger-pointing and general amazement. But the couple was given a table – pronto! They enjoyed an “intimate” dinner and then walked along Robertson Avenue window shopping, while the photographer they brought with them recorded every oh-so-private moment. Talk about controlling your own publicity and magnifying your image. Meantime, we haven’t heard much about Michael’s present wife, Debbie Rowe. She is somewhere in Hollywood expecting his second child.

I HEAR that Debbie Rowe and her hubby, Michael Jackson, are “outraged” by the continuing supermarket-tabloid allegations that they are headed for divorce. Or that their marriage is invalid; a fake in some way. Michael’s feeling feisty and righteously litigious at the moment. The pop icon was recently awarded $2.7 million when he won a lawsuit filed against a man who claimed – in a book and without any proof whatsoever – that he had seen explicit videos of Jackson and a young boy.(And it would have been nice if this victory had been a front-page story, as the initial accusation was.) Anyway, “strong letters” have been sent to those in the media who suggest that Jackson and Debbie, the mother of his two children, are not blissful. In their fashion.

“Michael didn’t spend much time talking to Debbie during the meeting – but he was happy to watch her with the children.

“It was his idea to do the photos. He was already thinking ahead. He wanted the pictures so he could show the children when they were older, so they’d know who their mother is.”

Rebbie Jackson, OK! May, 1998:

One family member she has yet to get the chance to accept is Michael’s wife Debbie Rowe, the mother of his heir Prince Michael Jr. “I have never met Debbie, so I don’t know what she’s like,” she explains.

Daily Record, May 1 1998

Pop superstar Michael Jackson stunned a Scots designer by snapping up pounds 68000 worth of outfits for his wife. Dundee-born David Rees was packing up after a show when Jackson wandered into his Paris salon. David, 33, hastily organised a private show – and Jackson snapped up 17 designs worth a cool pounds 4000 apiece.

He said the outfits were for his wife, former doctor’s assistant Debbie Rowe, 38. David said the star walked in after he finished showing his autumn collection at the Hotel Crillon in Paris. And he added: “He wants to see my next collection. That can’t be a bad thing.”

The Best scene at L’Orangerie in Hollywood was the arrival of Michael Jackson and wife Debbie Rowe at an intimate dinner for Debbie’s boss dermatologist Arnie Klein. The diner was a little thank-you to Arnie from the American Federation for AIDS Research for all the support he has given to the great AIDS-fighting organization. Jane and Michael Eisner were the hosts. Wallis Annenberg, the Gregory Pecks, Penny Marshall, and Carrie Fisher were in attendance too. (There had been some hope that Elizabeth Taylor might appear, but she didn’t.)

Michael looked like, well Michael. “He’s got a late 60’s Jackie Onassis thing going,” one onlooker said of Michael’s getup. But Rubenesque Debbie sported a slimmer silhouette and much improved hair color. ” She looked almost stunning.” And of even more consequence, this odd couple seemed very cozy, like any other husband and wife out to diinner. Photos of Michael and Debbie were taken for Kleins memory book, but then Michael surprised everybody by saying,” Oh, why don’t you sell these and make a few dollars for AmFar?”

Dec 27, 1998

DINERS at a chic LA restaurant were stunned to see Michael Jackson and his wife Debbie Rowe enjoying a romantic dinner together by candlelight. Can it be that the two are trying to behave like a normal couple?

Daily News 1998.

The news in November 1996 that Debbie Rowe was pregnant with Michael Jackson’s child stunned even the star’s most devoted fans. Her name had not figured before in this official -or unofficial- life story and no one knew who she was or what the nature of her relationship with Michael was.

Michael, for so long supposed to be, at best, androgynous, had in fact met Debbie 15 years earlier when she was a shy and retiring nurse and a divorcee. Theirs had been a romantic, wholesome relationship that came about by chance. The story of how it developed adds a new and unexpected dimension to the life of one of the world’s most successful and controversial entertainer.

Debbie’s colleagues say that whenever Michael came to Klein’s office, she took special care to make certain he was happy by fussing over him and seeing what she could do to make his visit more pleasant.

As a thank-you, Michael would always send her an autographed copy of his latest CD. Debbie would hang the CD picture jackets all over the office until, one day, Klein made her take them down. He told her that the display of affection was “a little inappropriate”.

“Then came the day when Debbie saw Michael naked, which was about five years ago,” recalls a former employee of Klein’s. “Michael had to disrobe for an examination and Debbie accidentally walked in on him. I don’t know what happened, but Debbie was in that examining room with him for a while. Later she said: ‘I’m probably the only woman who has ever seen Michael Jackson naked’. After that she would giggle a lot and blush whenever Michael came into the office.

“When Debbie was asked if she was romantically interested in Michael, she’d turn beetroot red. She ended up marrying someone else for a few years -divorced him in 1990 because she said she felt trapped -but she remained interested in Michael.”

In fact, Debbie and Michael had become close friends, confiding in one another about their lives and their unhappy marriages: Debbie’s to a man she said didn’t understand her need for freedom and Michael’s to Lisa Marie Presley, whom he whined was always “trying to change me.”

Debbie was so close to Michael that she was one of the few friends who assisted him during the allegations that were made about him molesting an underage boy, a time when, in his misery, he had become addicted to drugs. “I know when Michael was addicted, Debbie stayed on the telephone for hours and hours, pleading with him to save himself”, says Debbie’s friend Tonya Boyd. “She told me that she said: ‘If you die, I will be crushed. I wouldn’t be able to survive it. You are my very life’.”

As it happened, Lisa Marie Presley was also instrumental in helping Michael during that difficult time. So was Elizabeth Taylor. It would seem that Michael Jackson, a person not particularly known as a ladies’ man, had all of these women -a rock ‘n’ roll heiress, a screen star and a nurse- wrapped around his little finger, as he played the role of a helpless child.

Debbie was taken by surprise. One friend says: “She called me on November 12, 1996, and said: ‘Hey, guess what? I’m marrying Michael tomorrow.’ I asked her if she loved him. She stalled. Then she said: ‘Well, yes, I do. Kinda. I do.’ So, I pushed on. ‘Romantically?’ I asked. She paused, and said: ‘The kind of love we have is bigger, more important, than that’.”

They were duly married at a hotel between Michael’s touring commitments. Afterwards, it was rumored that Debbie Rowe received $1 million to give birth to Michael’s son Prince Michael Jr. However, according to reliable sources in the Jackson camp, Rowe actually received $500,000 -and not to give birth but rather as a “wedding gift”. Any story that she has a contract with Michael Jackson, and that she has received millions of dollars to bear his children, is simply untrue. Indeed no document has ever surfaced to support the rumor.

“None of it is true,” Debbie said when pressed to confirm stories of a deal. “Why won’t people believe me? I would never have his children for money. I am doing it because I am his dear friend. And I told him: ‘If this marriage becomes a problem and starts interfering with our friendship, then it must end.’ The friendship, that’s the important thing. I love my freedom. I will never settle down. That’s just not me. I can’t be what people want me to be, what Michael’s fans might want me to be. I have to be who I am. I am happy with things the way they are and it’s really nobody’s business.”

Jackson puts aside $10 million a year for Rowe, and has bought stocks and other annuities for her, too. But she doesn’t use the money. Ever since she married Michael, Debbie has been shuttled from modest rented home to rented home in the LA suburbs in an effort to put the media off the scent. Only two weeks ago, she moved again.

Michael is planning to buy her and exclusive home in Bel Air, according to sources, but he will continue to live abroad. In recent years, he has rented luxurious hideaways in France, Britain and Ireland. He has been trying to sell his palatial Neverland ranch -with its 27,000 acres, funfair and zoo, at Santa Ynez, California- for five years. Only the care-taking staff lives there these days.

Debbie and Michael spend little time together. She has made no demands on him whatsoever, and seems content. She sees friends, some of them men, from time to time. But those who know her well explain that she has always had low self-esteem, in the sense that as long as she can make another person happy, she doesn’t care about her own happiness.

In the meantime, Michael has gotten the children he desired, the children Lisa Marie wouldn’t -or couldn’t- give him, and Debbie has been able to keep her cherished freedom. She wanted only to give birth to Michael Jackson’s children. She never wanted to be a mother to them, or a wife to him.

“They’re adults,” Tonya Boyd explains. “Say what you want, have any judgment you like about it, but it’s their life, and they get to live it whatever way they choose.”

Jan 29 1999

Lisa Marie then wanted me to tell her my sources for various items about her ex-husband Michael Jackson and his current wife, Debbie Rowe! I declined, of course. And she declined to say much else, either – merely that she is busy in the recording studio, making an album. “Things are going well. My kids are good!” She promised she’d talk to me when she is ready with the album. So wait for it. You and I have no choice.

Magazine: Brides; A date with romance: In Brief; Jewels; With this ring, Feb 14, 1999

Debbie Rowe, Mrs. Michael Jackson and mother of his son, didn’t say beat it when he presented her with a platinum wedding band with diamond baguettes, which reputedly cost $100000.

“To help them grow and let them know you love them by looking them in the eyes, and saying ‘I love you.” And play, play, play with them.”‘ The singer, who spends £3,000 a day on 24-hour nannies, lives apart from Debbie, 40. But he laughs at suggestions his marriage is a sham. He insists: “I love my wife, and we have a happy marriage.

“Debbie is a nurse who loves her work, who loves taking care of people. Every day she wants to get up and look after others, to help them and make them better.

“That’s why I love her, and that’s what gives her bliss in life, God bless her.”‘

Debbie – who met Jackson when she worked as a dermatology nurse and treated him for his skincomplaint vitiligo – is on record as saying: “Michael is a doting father. I know the children are safe whenever they’re with him.”

Further discussion about the marriage is not forthcoming. But again, you are left with a sneaking, dreadful feeling that Jackson might actually be telling the truth. That he might genuinely love his wife after all.

They may even, incredibly, have had sex.

Checks into hospital, April 17/18 1999

Roger Friedman’s column on February 7, 2005:

Michael Jackson checked himself into New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital for two days back in 1999.

The exact dates were April 17 and 18, and the alias he used was “James Walker.”

At the time, he was still married to, though not living with, his second wife, Debbie Rowe, and he already had custody of their two children, Prince and Paris.

Rowe, according to sources, did not know of the hospitalization. Neither did most of Jackson’s close associates.

When he finally checked into Lenox Hill, Jackson was alone most of the time, without any entourage, assistants or pets. Horovitz treated him with IV fluids.

“My job was to hydrate him quickly,” the doctor recalled. “I put the IV in myself, and there was no one else around.”

He ran blood tests, but not for drugs. He said he did not see pill bottles with Jackson, and there was no indication that he was medicating himself at the time. Jackson’s only diversion in his overnight stay was a boom box.

June 2, 1999

There are conflicting reports out of New York that Michael Jackson’s two-year-old son Prince may be seriously ill, and maybe even dying, from a viral infection.

The singer withdrew from Tuesday night’s “Pavarotti & Friends” benefit for Warchild to remain with his son in a New York hospital.

But Jackson’s wife Debbie Rowe, who says she found out about her son’s illness watching the news, says Prince isn’t dying, and she told KNBC in Los Angeles that doctors and even Jackson himself told her that Prince would be fine. In addition, Pavarotti’s spokeswoman, who attended the concert, told MTV News Wednesday that the opera singer never told the sold-out crowd of 17,000 that Jackson’s son was dying. She says Pavarotti’s statement (which was in Italian) was mistranslated by the press, and that Pavarotti said the boy was sick, not dying. As of press time, representatives for Jackson were not available for comment.

July 5-13 1999

Michael, Grace & the kids stay at Disneyland Paris where they are joined by Debbie.

Mid July, 1999

Separation date listed in Debbie’s divorce papers.

September 11-14 1999

Michael is in Disneyland Paris with Grace & the kids. Debbie joins them.

October 8 1999

Pop superstar Michael Jackson and his wife of three years, Deborah Rowe, filed for divorce today in a Los Angeles Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences.

The divorce petition states that Rowe and Jackson have reached a confidential financial settlement, though it did not indicate if an agreement regarding custody of the couple’s two children had been settled, according to the Associated Press. Rowe and Jackson are parents to a 2-year-old boy, Prince Michael, and a 1-year-old girl, Paris Michael Katherine. The couple has apparently been separated since mid-July. Jackson wed Rowe, a nurse from his plastic surgeon’s office, in November 1996, less than a year after divorcing his first wife, Lisa Marie Presley, after two years of marriage.

Schmuley Tapes, 2000/1

In 1994 Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley but the marriage ended in divorce after two years. In 1996 he married Debbie Rowe the mother of his two children. The three-year marriage ended when Rowe filed for divorce last October.

“I know he was pretty torn up over it. … We left that one alone,” Boteach said.

“I am not privy to the terms of Michael’s divorce,” says Boteach. “But he is cut up over it. She has made visits to the children, but I don’t know how often. What I do know is that Michael is a very understanding father.”

Schmuley on Howard Stern, 6 Apr 2001

Howard: “What about Debbie Rowe? Were they together when you met Michael?”

Rabbi: “They were just coming apart then.”

Howard: “What about his kids? Did he father those kids?”

Rabbi: “Of course. Prince looks like his father. He has Michael’s eyes, the same blotches on his skin.”

Howard: “Does the mom see the kids?”

Rabbi: “Sometimes”

October 17 2001

Represented by attorney Iris Finsilver, Debbie Rowe goes to the family court in Los Angeles to give up her parental rights on Prince & Paris because she says she has not seen them for a year and did not want to disturb them by making intrusions in their life once in a while.

Hearing transcript:

Q. When is the last time you saw the children?
A. I think it was either August or October of last year when I gave up my visitation rights.
Q. Have you communicated with either of the children —
A. No.
Q. — Over the past year?
A. Not at all.
Q. Do you wish to communicate with the children?
A. No.
Q. Do you ever have the desire to call the children over the telephone?
A. No.
Q. Do you have a desire to send any cards or letters to the children?
A. No.
Q. Do you want the court to terminate your parental right?
A. Yes
Q. Okay.
A. Because —
Q. That was my next question. Why?
A. Because Michael is a wonderful man, first of all, a brilliant father. And it’s the best — as their mother, it is the best interest for the children. I don’t know if Judge Lachs understands this. But when I was seeing them every 45 days, it felt like an intrusion on their life and they’re going to have enough intrusions as it is. I don’t want to be part of it. I’m absolutely around if ever Michael needs me, if the children need me for a liver, kidney, a hello, whatever, I will always be around for him. These are his children. I had the children for him. They wouldn’t be on this planet if it wasn’t for my love of him. I did it for him to become a father. Not for me to become a mother. You earn the title parent. I have done absolutelynothing to earn that title.
Q. How long have you thought about your decision?
A. Since — I’ve thought about it for a year. The reason I didn’t do it a year ago, everybody would have gone “UH”, “Uh”, “Uh”, GASP, GASP, GASP. “Oh my God, have you thought this out?” So just so everybody understands, I’ve thought about this a lot. And this is — this is for what’s the best for the kids
…
Do you understand that in the future you will not be able to go back into court to reinstate your parental right?
I undertand that.
Q. Have you ever considered the possibility if Michael should die, what would happen to the children?
A. I’m sure he’s – he has a wonderful person in mind to take care of them.

TV Guide, November 2001

TVG: Which one of your kids is most like you?

MJ: Both, but in different ways. Prince likes to tease, to the point where you want to pull his hair. I always used to tease my sisters all the time.

TVG: And Paris?

MJ: She’s the tough one.

TVG: How is their mother, Debbie Rowe? [A former nurse, she was married to Jackson from 1996 to ’99. Jackson was married to his first wife, Lisa Marie Presley, from 1994 to ’96]

KING: By the way, we asked about Lisa Marie. Does Michael keep in touch with Debbie Rowe, his second wife?

JERMAINE JACKSON: I’m pretty sure, yes. Yes. But those are questions that you should ask him.

KING: Because he’s got the children though, right?

JERMAINE JACKSON: Yes.

KING: I did mention the second marriage. Did that end badly?

JERMAINE JACKSON: I really don’t know.

KING: You don’t know Debbie Rowe then?

JERMAINE JACKSON: Debbie Rowe?

KING: Yes, I mean you know her.

JERMAINE JACKSON: Well, not know her, know her. I know that’s where the children came from.

KING: Did that end badly?

JERMAINE JACKSON: I really don’t know. You would have to speak with him about that.

Debbie Rowe Speak Out In Defense Of Michael, February 6, 2003

In the wake of all of the media frenzy surrounding the 90-minute interview, *’Living With Michael Jackson’ which originally aired on Monday in Britain, Michael’s ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, gave an exclusive interview to GMTV in the U.K. Debbie, horrified by the way in which the media has treated Michael since the interview, had these words to say in his defense:

“He is a wonderful, caring man and he’s not portrayed as he really is and it really pisses me off. There could be no other person that could be a better father and I resent anyone making allegations that he is not a parent, and that he is not a proper parent.

No one has ever read more about parenting, no one has ever practised the art of parenting and parenting is an art, you earn the title parent. Because you give birth, because you impregnate someone, it does not automatically give you that title of Mother or Father. You earn the title.

My kids don’t call me mom because I don’t want them to, they’re not, they’re Michael’s children, it’s not that they’re not my children, but I had them because I wanted him to be a father. I believe that there are some people who should be parents and he’s one of them, and he is such a fabulous man and such a good friend and he’s always been there for me, always, from the day I met him. I could do something for him and this is what I wanted to do, you know and people don’t understand that and they want a traditional they think that something has to be traditional and they have this notion of beaver cleaver. That’s, that wasn’t reality in the 50’s and that’s not reality, you know in the 21st century.”

2003, Bashir Take Two

In Take 2, Debbie refused to answer the question wether she had sex with Michael “That’s non of your business and very inappropriate to ask”… but then she said this:

“One of the best things to do is… what I think…When you love someone… don’ t you ever wake up in the middle of the night and just… look at ’em? And see the beauty. I mean that’s… peace. That’… calm. That’s, that’s how that person is. You know you don’t see the stress of the day or what’s going on, you know. And I could sit and stare at him for hours. Cause it was calm.“

“To try and prevent some of the taboo, you know if you have a child out of wedlock. The kids were gonna have it hard enough as it was. They didn’t need to have that label placed upon them, like their father had so many placed upon him. They shouldn’t. If there’s one way we could remove it or try to make it what people thought “normal.”

Lisa, Playboy, June 2003

PLAYBOY: Did you and Michael discuss having kids?

PRESLEY: Yeah. [Laughs] I got out of that one. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea right now.” But I knew that’s what he wanted. And I knew Debbie Rowe was offering to do it for him while we were married, according to him. She was a nurse who had a crush on him and offered to have his babies.

PLAYBOY: Was he trying to leverage you into agreeing?

PRESLEY: Kind of. “Debbie Rowe says she’ll do it.” Ok, have Debbie Rowe do it! And it’s funny, when I imagined having a child with him, all I could ever see was a custody battle nightmare.

PLAYBOY: He just wanted to find someone to bear his children.

PRESLEY: I think so, but I don’t know.

PLAYBOY: Do you want more kids?

PRESLEY: I’d like two more.

PLAYBOY: And if you don’t have someone to be the father–

PRESLEY: Are you kidding me? No, I will not go to a sperm donor. I could ask Debbie Rowe to be a surrogate for me.

Rumor Concerning Custody, January 28, 2004

In his column on Fox news, Roger Friedman debunks the recent rumors coming from the British tabloid, The Sun, who claim that Debbie Rowe is suing for custody of Prince and Paris.

“Rowe is said to have laughed heartily when she heard the British tabloid The Sun made up their latest fiction.”

The Sun jumped to the conclusion that she was suing for custody based on the fact that she is Jewish and consequently upset about the Nation Of Islam guarding the children.

Friedman, February 18, 2004

Meanwhile, my sources tell me two other very important facts relating to the ongoing Jackson saga.

“The Nation of Islam is still in control,” is the first message. Despite newspaper reports from London, Michael and Debbie Rowe, the mother of his two eldest children, are not in a custody battle. They never discussed Debbie getting more visitations and the Nation of Islam backing away from Jackson.

“It never happened,” said two sources of mine yesterday. I do wish the London tabloid The Sun would stop inventing these fantasies.

Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe, the mother of his two older children, has been subpoenaed to testify in his child-molestation case, sources tell me.

Rowe, mother of Prince Michael and Paris Katherine, was served at her attorney’s office about two weeks ago by Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon.

This turn of events ratchets up the animosity between Rowe and Jackson even more — if that’s possible.

In October, Jackson refused to pay Rowe her annual alimony payment of about $1 million, claiming that she had breached the confidentiality clause in their divorce agreement.

His specific complaint was that Rowe had appeared on “Entertainment Tonight,” although the piece was about her horses and the sale of her home.

The alimony payment is said to have been placed in escrow by Jackson, but no proof has been offered of that so far.

Jackson’s non-payment to Rowe came at the same time that he cut off other financial obligations, including a major one to his ex-criminal attorney Steve Cochran.

Jackson’s former partner Marc Schaffel, who had been receiving installment payments on money he was owed until he was cut off months ago, is also suing him.

Randy Jackson, Michael’s brother and adviser, is said to be behind the abrupt belt-tightening.

In Rowe’s case, however, the cessation of payments follows a long line of contention between the former spouses. Jackson has refused to speak to Rowe since he persuaded her to defend him in a television interview in February 2003 — the so-called “rebuttal video.”

Rowe, who had appeared to be ambivalent about her children, has grown more and more determined to gain custody since then, sources say.

In a few days, her custody case against Jackson will wind up in front of a Los Angeles family-court judge, although Jackson himself is not expected to attend.

Yesterday, the family law team, led by Michael Abrams, tried to get an extension on the case, but was denied.

Jackson, in turn, is said to have served Rowe’s attorney with a lawsuit which, if he wins, would prevent her from turning over any documents to the district attorney.

“He hasn’t shown up for one hearing on the custody issue,” my source said. “He has a team of lawyers fighting Debbie’s one. But he serves them with huge amounts of papers all the time.”

Jackson, according to my sources, seems unaware that Rowe, who could potentially be a damaging witness for the prosecution in the child-molestation case, is hell-bent on seeing the custody case through to the end.

Rowe is also determined to find out who leaked documents about her and the children to Britain’s News of the World tabloid last spring.

The detailed information, which was also considered confidential, did not come from her, but Rowe and her attorneys may soon give voice to their suspicions about the possible culprits, sources tell me.

Joe Jackson’s Autobio, roughly translated from German, December 2004

“During the time Michael had two children with Debbie Rowe she was a good friend to him. But of course the media just reports the bad stuff and so nobody could read about Lisa Marie and Michael meeting in South Africa, or that they were going out very often. Debbie too, knew that Michael will always love Lisa Marie, and I see it the same way. We never met Debbie, but with Lisa the family stayed in contact even after the divorce. She has a special place in Michael’s heart.”

Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe, the mother of his two older children, has been subpoenaed to testify in his child-molestation case, sources tell me.

Rowe, mother of Prince Michael and Paris Katherine, was served at her attorney’s office about two weeks ago by Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon.

This turn of events ratchets up the animosity between Rowe and Jackson even more — if that’s possible.

In October, Jackson refused to pay Rowe her annual alimony payment of about $1 million, claiming that she had breached the confidentiality clause in their divorce agreement.

His specific complaint was that Rowe had appeared on “Entertainment Tonight,” although the piece was about her horses and the sale of her home.

The alimony payment is said to have been placed in escrow by Jackson, but no proof has been offered of that so far.

Jackson’s non-payment to Rowe came at the same time that he cut off other financial obligations, including a major one to his ex-criminal attorney Steve Cochran.

Jackson’s former partner Marc Schaffel, who had been receiving installment payments on money he was owed until he was cut off months ago, is also suing him.

Randy Jackson, Michael’s brother and adviser, is said to be behind the abrupt belt-tightening.

In Rowe’s case, however, the cessation of payments follows a long line of contention between the former spouses. Jackson has refused to speak to Rowe since he persuaded her to defend him in a television interview in February 2003 — the so-called “rebuttal video.”

Rowe, who had appeared to be ambivalent about her children, has grown more and more determined to gain custody since then, sources say.

In a few days, her custody case against Jackson will wind up in front of a Los Angeles family-court judge, although Jackson himself is not expected to attend.

Yesterday, the family law team, led by Michael Abrams, tried to get an extension on the case, but was denied.

Jackson, in turn, is said to have served Rowe’s attorney with a lawsuit which, if he wins, would prevent her from turning over any documents to the district attorney.

“He hasn’t shown up for one hearing on the custody issue,” my source said. “He has a team of lawyers fighting Debbie’s one. But he serves them with huge amounts of papers all the time.”

Jackson, according to my sources, seems unaware that Rowe, who could potentially be a damaging witness for the prosecution in the child-molestation case, is hell-bent on seeing the custody case through to the end.

Rowe is also determined to find out who leaked documents about her and the children to Britain’s News of the World tabloid last spring.

The detailed information, which was also considered confidential, did not come from her, but Rowe and her attorneys may soon give voice to their suspicions about the possible culprits, sources tell me.

Debbie Rowe Wants Visitation, December 18, 2004

According to court documents, Debbie Rowe is seeking visitation rights with the two children she had with Michael Jackson during their marriage. In 2001, Ms. Rowe gave up all parental rights, but applied for custody of the children two years later. After this, both sides agreed to have retired Judge Stephen Lachs preside over the case. Lachs denied granting custody to Ms. Rowe, but also voided the order that terminated her parental rights. Ms. Rowe then filed applications, including one that sought “settlement” terms with Michael Jackson. The judge denied all, according to court documents.

Michael’s attorney, Thomas Hall, said that he is preparing an appeal of a recent decision made by the retired judge in the matter. Hall plans to file documents from the case and is requesting that they be sealed because they contain information concerning Michael’s finances.

Mr. Hall stressed that while the issue is a separate one from the current criminal case being heard in Santa Barbara, the matter has “exponentially increased the press attention on the parties and their lives.”

Attorney Iris Finsilver, Ms. Rowe’s lawyer, participated by speakerphone in a hearing on Wednesday and opposes the request. Judge Robert Schnider has continued the case until February 2, 2005.

The nasty nature of the Debbie Rowe-Michael Jackson custody case has been ratcheted up a notch or two since last week.

Recent court documents reveal that last April, Rowe gained significant ground against Jackson when a family court judge voided the previous “parental termination” order, which denied her any rights at all.

This gave Rowe a big leap forward in her efforts to be a part of the lives of son Prince Michael and daughter Paris Katherine.

Rowe is said to be more and more anxious about the children’s situation, with Jackson at the Neverland Ranch as their father’s child-molestation trial looms. Yesterday, Judge Rodney Melville stuck to his guns that the trial must begin on January 31, 2005.

But Rowe would be even more upset if she heard what I was told: that since the most recent police raid on Neverland, Prince Michael, who is 7, now understands that his father is in serious trouble.

He is now asking questions, according to my sources, although he and Paris do not know why the police came to their home in droves. They only know it has something to do with their father.

Michael’s response, I am told, is that he is crying often and is very upset about the police raid.

Rowe’s April win in family court came to light last week when Jackson’s attorney in that case, Thomas Hall, filed papers asking the private judge, Stephen Lachs, to seal all court records.

In particular, Hall wanted financial papers sealed so that others — like Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon — couldn’t have them subpoenaed for his case.

Hall’s papers, though, contained enough extraneous information (including attacks on Rowe) that what was supposed to be private is now available to the public.

Debbie Rowe To Testify, 2nd February, 2005

Debbie Rowe, Michael’s ex wife and mother of two of his three children, has reportedly agreed to provide testimony during the trial.

Ms. Rowe is also filing to regain custody of Prince and Paris after reportedly signing over all rights to Michael following the 1999 divorce.

It has yet to be confirmed if Lisa Marie Presley, Michael’s first wife, will take the stand.

Debbie Rowe Against Testimony of Children, 17th February, 2005

Debbie Rowe, ex-wife of Michael Jackson and mother of his two oldest children, Prince and Paris, is hoping to prevent her children from testifying in their father’s upcoming child molestation case.

The names of the two children were listed as possible defense witnesses in the trial, while Rowe has been named on the prosecution’s list.

No word yet on the actions she is planned to take.

Apparently Debbie was selling her wedding ring on ebay in March 2005 and was answering questions to Ebay Members

Mar-08-05

Q: Cheers all around, well…. maybe not for you but I broke open some bubbly today. Anyway, since your having such a nice day and I’m still in a sharing mood, Michael gave me a VERY NICE ring when we got married. The Real Mrs. Michael J. Jackson,(SABAH)

A: time to increase your lithium now—does Michael know that his wife is dating? He does now

Q: Dear Debbie, the one thing that is really annoying me about you is that you act like the victim. Saying you dont want to sell the ring because it has alot of ‘sentimental value’ to you. But you would not have to sell the ring if you did not try to get Michael Jacksons children off him which caused him to stop your money. Do all of us a favour and get a real job! Michael is a fantastic father and deserves his children unlike you who’s willing to give them up for
money! Michael Jackson is innocent and it will be proved!
Mar-06-05
A: If you people would quit attacking me for NO reason and knowing absolutely NOTHING about any situation, I am a victim of your ignorance shame you choose to show it publically. Keep reading those academic papers that are refered to as tabloids.

Q: tell michael i love him and he has my support 110%
Mar-06-05
A: will do

Q: hi debbie,ive never actually spoken to a *celeb* before, im just saying hi, to see if you reply. all the best in the future, vinny.
Mar-06-05
A: Thanks Vinny, but I NOT the celeb……..never have been never wanted to be. I’ve tried to reply to the normal e-mails.

Q: Does this ring have any inscriptions on the inner band. Thankyou for your reply.
Mar-06-05
A: no it does not, except for PT900 (platinum stamp)

Q: i hope you don’t get custody of Michael’s children. he raised them, and raised them right. it is your own fault for giving them away in the first place. go back to topless modelling in the dentist chair!!! glad i never met you…
Mar-05-05
A: so you don’t want the ring………..don’t bid

Q: michael jackson is innocent
Mar-05-05
A: and this is regards to the ring how?

Q: What is the total weight of the center stone and the total carat weight of
the ring?
Mar-05-05
A: 2.13 carats is the center stone total weight is 2.66

Q: Good luck Debbie. I hope you get a million for it. Bren
Mar-05-05
A: would not be enough for the sentimental value……but thanks

Q: Was reading your description of the ring. Your saying in the listing that it is VS1 clarity and yet when you describe it below that you state a SI1 clarity. Was it VS1 when bought and now has changed to a lower clarity since worn? Not sure, what you are selling in the Diamonds………. David
Mar-04-05
A: the center diamond is VS1, the accent diamonds are SI2

Q: Debbie, is the ring too heavy that it makes it uncomfortable to wear, or does it feel normal? Thanks for your time, I know you are busy.
Mar-04-05
A: very comfortable

Q: Dear Debbie, is the ring made by a particular jewel designer? like Cartier, Tiffany or Harry Winston? and best of luck with the auction and with your life.
Mar-04-05
A: the ring was purchased in Sydney from Ivan Vortuni at House of Giulians. I have tried to find him, but to no avail, if you find him, let me know!!!!!!!!!!

Q: Debbie, please don’t hurt Michael, we are all begging you. I dont know if these stories are true in the papers but if they are I would have thought better of you. I thought you were kind hearted.
Mar-04-05
A: what have I done? Please post your opinions on your fan sites…you have no idea what is going on. I wish him only the best

What kind of work was that that you were
doing for Mr. Klein?
A. He’s a dermatologist. I was an assistant
for him.
Q. For what period of time were you his
assistant?
10 A. From 1979 to 2000 or 2001.
11 Q. What kind of work did you do for Mr. —
12 Dr. Klein?
13 A. I assisted him with surgeries and patients.

Q. You then had a conversation with Ronald
13 Konitzer as well?
14 A. For a brief moment. Michael was with him.
15 Q. Did Michael Jackson then get on the
16 telephone?
17 A. Yes, he did.
18 MR. MESEREAU: Objection; leading.
19 THE COURT: Overruled.
20 Q. BY MR. ZONEN: What did Mr. Jackson say to
21 you in the course of this conversation?
22 A. He told me there was a video coming out, and
23 it was full of lies, and would I help. And I said,
24 as always, yes. I asked him if he was okay. I was
25 very upset.
26 Q. When was the last time you had talked with
27 Michael Jackson?
28 A. The day of our divorce. 7940
And how long prior to that, to this
2 conversation you’re now referring to, was that day
3 of your divorce?
4 A. October 12th.
5 Q. Of what year, please?
6 A. .99.

7 Q. All right. So we’re now talking about
8 February of 2003; is that correct?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Now, he asked you for some kind of
11 assistance; is that correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. What exactly did he ask you to do, if
14 anything?
15 A. He asked if I would work with Ronald and
16 Dieter to help him, and I said yes. And I asked him
17 how he was. I asked him how the children were. And
18 I asked if I could see them when everything settled
19 down.
20 Q. What did he tell you?
21 A. He said yes.
22 Q. All right. Had you had any communication
23 with Mr. Jackson in the preceding period of time
24 with regards to the children?
25 A. No.
26 Q. Had you sent any letters to him at all
27 requesting that you be able to see them at some
28 point in time? 7941
1 A. No.
2 Q. Did you want to see the children?
3 A. Very much.
4 Q. All right. The conversation that you had
5 with Mr. Jackson over the telephone, did he tell you
6 from where he was calling?
7 A. No. I was told by Marc that they had to
8 call Europe.
MR. ZONEN: Why did you do this interview?
MS. ROWE: I promised him that I would always be there for him and the children.
MR. ZONEN: All right. During the course of your being at the house conducting
this interview, did you talk with Mr. Schaffel any further about your children?
MS. ROWE: Yes.
MR. ZONEN: All right. What did he say with regards to your children while you
were at his house?
MR. MESEREAU: Objection; hearsay.
MR. ZONEN: Same exception. I will add also it’s a statement in furtherance.
THE COURT: I reject that as a reason, but let me look. All right. I’ll allow the
question for the limited purpose of explaining her action after that. Do you
want the question read back?
MS. ROWE: I can’t see that far, yes, please.
THE COURT: Okay.
(Record read.)
MS. ROWE: That they were fine; that Michael was going to be okay; that it was — he was happy for me that we were all going to get to see each other again, and how big the kids have gotten, and how beautiful they were, and how strong-headed Paris is and — about like me.
MR. ZONEN: What was your expectation with regards to your children in terms of your completing this interview?
MR. MESEREAU: Objection. Leading; foundation.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. ZONEN: Did you have any expectations with regard to your kids at all?
MR. MESEREAU: Objection; leading.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MS. ROWE: Yes.
MR. ZONEN: What was that? What were your expectations?
MS. ROWE: To be reintroduced to them and to be reacquainted with their dad.
MR. ZONEN: You wanted to be reacquainted with Mr. Jackson as well?
MS. ROWE: Yes.
MR. ZONEN: Why?
MS. ROWE: He’s my friend.
MR. ZONEN: When was the last time you had actually seen Mr. Jackson related to your two oldest children?
MS. ROWE: The day that we signed our divorce papers.
MR. ZONEN: Did you have any information at all about his parenting skills with your children?
MS. ROWE: Just — yes, I did. I — when I was seeing the children, I spoke with
the nannies before we divorced. I saw him with the children. I’ve seen him with the kids the whole time I’ve known him.

At this time, Judge Melville declared the court in recess until the following
morning at 8:30 a.m. Court was adjourned at 2:30 p.m.

MR. ZONEN: How did you approach this
13 interview in terms of your affect?
14 A. I was excited to do it.
15 Q. Why?
16 A. Because I would get to see my children and
17 possibly renew a relationship with Mr. Jackson.
18 Q. Why did you want to do that?
19 A. They’re my family.
20 Q. Did you consider them your family?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Did you consider Mr. Jackson to be your
23 family to the same extent as your children?
24 A. I don’t think anyone is as much as your
25 children, but, yes.
Q. When was the last time you had been to
11 Neverland?
12 A. Years. I couldn’t tell you. Probably .99,
13 .98.
. Okay. And I believe you said yesterday
2 you’ve stayed his friend, right?
3 A. I’ve always considered him my friend.
4 Q. And you still do, right?
5 A. Yeah. If he’d talk to me. Sorry.
6 Q. And without question, the communicating
7 through lawyers has created problems with —
8 A. Have you met Mr. Hall? Extreme problems.
9 Q. Okay. Okay. You’re blaming the lawyers for
10 a lot of that, right?

In that interview, what kind of a person did
27 you say Michael was?
28 A. Generous. To a fault. Giving and kind. 8019
1 Q. Anything else do you recall saying?
2 A. Good father. Great with kids. Put other
3 people ahead of him. Things like that.
4 Q. If you can, do you remember anything else
5 you said about Michael?
6 A. He’s a brilliant businessman. There’s
7 different Michaels. There’s, like, my Michael.
8 Q. Do you want some water?
9 A. And the Michael that everyone else sees.
10 Q. And that would be the public Michael?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. That would be Michael the entertainer,
13 right?
14 A. Michael the entertainer, yeah.
15 Q. When did you first meet Michael?
16 A. In the .80s.
17 Q. And how did you meet Michael?
18 A. Through my office when I worked with Dr.
19 Klein.
20 Q. Okay. And what was your position with Dr.
21 Klein at the time?
22 A. I was an assistant.
23 Q. And Michael went to Dr. Klein for various
24 treatments, right?
25 A. Yes.
26 Q. And do you recall when he first went to Dr.
27 Klein?
28 A. Yes. The very first day, yes. I was not 8020
1 his nurse then.

HE WITNESS: Sorry.
4 THE COURT: Stricken.
5 Q. BY MR. MESEREAU: Let me try and ask it
6 again. What was the first tour that you went on
7 with Michael?
8 A. “Dangerous.”
9 Q. And approximately when was that?
10 A. I don’t remember. That was — all those
11 tours. And they all just ran together, because it
12 was a long schedule.
13 Q. Okay. Was it in the .80s or .90s; do you
14 know?
15 A. I think it was in the early .90s.
16 Q. Okay. And where did that tour go to?
17 A. I think it started in Bangkok, and went
18 throughout Asia, Japan, Singapore. Then there was a
19 break. And then it went to Europe.
20 I did go to the last concert in Gutenberg, I
21 think on the tour previous to that. Because
22 Gutenberg wasn’t on the “Dangerous” tour.
23 Q. And were you traveling with Michael along
24 with his physician?
25 A. Yes.
26 Q. Okay. And you then went on another tour
27 after that?
28 A. Yes. 8022
1 Q. And what tour was that?
2 A. “History.”
3 Q. Okay. And approximately when was that?
4 A. It seemed like it was right after
5 “Dangerous,” within a year or two after “Dangerous.”
6 It could have been a little bit longer than that.
7 Q. And you were on that tour along with the
8 physician as well, right?
9 A. We were married when that was going on.
10 Q. Okay.
11 A. So, no. Klein would come every once in a
12 while, but I was there every three weeks to see
13 little Michael and Michael and to see how everybody
14 was, because I was still working. I couldn’t more
15 often than that.

20 Q. I mean, your first time you ever met Mr.
21 Sneddon was the early .90s, wasn’t it?
22 A. I don’t remember. I remember I did a
23 deposition. I thought it was for a woman. I don’t
24 remember. I don’t remember any of that part. I
25 tend to block out unpleasantries. I don’t remember
26 any of that part. I don’t remember if Mr. Sneddon
27 was there or not.
28 Q. Okay. 8023
Did you ever see Ronald Konitzer
18 interact with Michael Jackson?
19 A. Not since I had met him in Europe on tour
20 years before.
21 Q. So you’re talking about conversations that
22 may have taken place when, in the early .90s?
23 A. Yes.
Q. All right. Do you still like Michael
26 Jackson?
27 A. I have very strong memories and feelings for
28 the Michael that I have known but haven’t seen since
1 1999. But those are based on my feelings. We
2 haven’t spoken.
3 Q. All right. Is it the case that the sum
4 total of your communication with Mr. Jackson since
5 1999, six years ago, was a two-and-a-half-minute
6 conversation that you described?
7 A. Correct.
8 Q. And that was a conversation where he asked
9 you to participate in this video; is that correct?
10 A. To work with Ronald, Dieter, and Marc.
11 Q. Is it clear to you that he understood that
12 you wanted to see your children?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. All right. Did he ever call you to say
15 that —
16 A. No.
17 Q. — or to invite you up to come see the
18 children?
19 A. No, he didn’t.
20 Q. Who do you believe is responsible for your
21 not being able to see the children?
22 MR. MESEREAU: Objection. Relevance;
23 foundation.
24 THE COURT: Overruled.
25 Q. BY MR. ZONEN: You can answer the question.
26 A. He’s their father. Ultimately it’s his
27 decision. I don’t want to believe that. I want to
28 believe that it’s other people. I want to believe
1 it’s Marc Schaffel threatening him that I want to
2 take the children, things like that.
BY MR. ZONEN: Tell us, in your opinion, who
9 is responsible at this time for your not being able
10 to have access to your children?
11 MR. MESEREAU: Same objection.
12 THE COURT: Overruled.
13 THE WITNESS: When I was first promised to
14 see the kids, when Michael — he called me, for me
15 to show up when they were at that age of three and
16 four, four and five, I could be introduced as a
17 friend, as a friend of daddy’s. And you don’t
18 confuse a child by saying, “Oh, this is your
19 mother.”
20 I can’t do that now. They’re too old. To
21 do something like that, it would be too traumatic.
22 I would not walk in and say, “Hey, I’m your mom,”
23 you know, “Want to go out?”
24 It’s — it’s so much more complicated than
25 that when reintroducing yourself to children who may
26 or may not remember me.
27 Q. BY MR. ZONEN: Are you saying that you
28 believe that Mr. Jackson is amenable to your seeing
1 your children; it’s just a question of how?
2 MR. MESEREAU: Objection. Leading;
3 argumentative; no foundation.
4 MR. ZONEN: It’s impeachment, Your Honor, as
5 to the leading issue
6 MR. MESEREAU: Improper opinion.
7 THE COURT: The objection is overruled.
8 Do you want the question read back?
9 THE WITNESS: No. Thank you.
10 I’m hoping in my heart that he is. But we
11 haven’t spoken, so I don’t know. I get to deal with
12 Abrams and Hall.
BY MR. ZONEN: Why do you believe he hasn’t
14 spoken with you?
15 MR. MESEREAU: Objection. Leading;
16 argumentative; foundation; relevance.
17 THE COURT: Overruled.
18 THE WITNESS: I don’t know if he is
19 concerned about this case. I don’t know what his
20 concerns are, if he thinks I’m going to take the
21 children from him. I don’t know. I haven’t spoken
22 to him. I don’t know.
And did you feel Dieter was trying to hurt
15 Michael and also your children?
16 A. I think they’re opportunistic vultures.
17 Q. Would that be Dieter, Konitzer and Schaffel?
18 A. Okay. You can do them alphabetically if
19 you’d like.
20 Q. You’re talking about the three of them,
21 right?
22 A. All of them.
23 Q. Who else are you referring to as vultures,
24 besides those three?
25 A. If it’s a personal opinion, does it count?
26 MR. ZONEN: I’m going to object as beyond
27 the scope of the direct examination and speculative
28 and improper opinion. 8011
1 THE COURT: Sounds like she’s got a long
2 list. I think I’ll sustain the objection.
3 (Laughter.)
4 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
MR. ZONEN: Did you know Frank Cascio?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. How did you know Frank Cascio?
23 A. I met his family years ago.
24 Q. Years ago?
25 A. Yeah.
26 Q. How old was Frank Cascio when you met his
27 family?
28 A. It was just after little Michael had been
1 born. He must have been middle teens maybe. He was
2 the oldest of the boys.
3 Q. You didn’t know him as a person who was
4 involved in Mr. Jackson’s relationships or business
5 affairs?
6 A. No.
7 Q. He was a teenager?
8 A. This is years ago. We’re talking —
9 Q. Yes.
10 A. Yeah. No, no, no.
11 Q. Did he visit Mr. Jackson regularly?
12 A. The family came up — I knew him with the
13 family, when Mr. and Mrs. Cascio were there with the
14 kids, with the boys.
15 Q. Did you understand Frank Cascio’s
16 relationship with Michael Jackson to be very close?
17 A. He was close with all the Cascios.

Today is supposed to be “D-Day” or “Debbie Day” for the prosecution in the Michael Jackson case. Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon has subpoenaed Debbie Rowe, the singer’s ex-wife and mother of his two eldest children, because he thinks she will damage Jackson in front of the jury.

The worst she can do is answer questions about her children’s paternity. In that case, I am told, she will have to concede that Jackson is not the father of Prince, 8, and Paris, 7.

Rowe has suffered for years by perpetuating the lie that they were conceived in a conventional manner. The truth, according to my sources, is that she acted as a surrogate twice and was artificially inseminated — and not with Jackson’s sperm. This open secret was revealed in a London tabloid last year, but Rowe has verified it to friends.

But Sneddon has other needs for Rowe’s testimony, and this may be another setback for him.

He plans on trying to get Rowe to say that an interview she gave for “Entertainment Tonight” and The Globe tabloid newspaper in February 2003 was scripted. Sneddon thinks such an admission will support his argument that Jackson’s people also scripted the video made later that month by the family of the boy accusing him of sex abuse.

But the prosecution will have its work cut out on this issue — because Rowe’s interview, I am told, was not at all scripted.

In fact, Rowe volunteered at the time to tape the interview to help Jackson. I’m told that not only did no one ask her to do it, but she was not paid for it either. At the time, Jackson and Rowe were still on relatively good terms over their children.

So what actually happened? Ian Drew of US Weekly did the interview for “ET.” Drew submitted a list of 100 questions to Jackson associate Marc Schaffel by e-mail on Feb. 4, 2003. That was the day after “Living with Michael Jackson,” the Martin Bashir documentary, aired in Britain.

If the subsequent interview had been scripted, as the prosecution claims, the answers Rowe would have given might have been more circumspect. But they are pure, original Debbie Rowe — very off-the-cuff and honest.

In the interview, which will likely be played back today for the jury, Drew asks Rowe pointed questions about Jackson’s sexuality, their sex life, their marriage, her role as a parent, Jackson’s parenting skills and a lot of other subjects that would certainly not have surfaced in a controlled setting. Her answers are often evasive and not exactly flattering to Jackson.

After the video was done, Drew — who’s on the defense list of possible witnesses — came back and asked to see the finished tape so he could make a transcript of the interview for The Globe. Sources tell me the “script” Sneddon will produce in court today is actually that transcript.

“You can see the time code on it,” my source said. “Sneddon just doesn’t get it. That script was made after the interview, not before.”

What’s on this video? For one thing, Rowe admits that the couple married because she was pregnant with Prince. She admits to not spending her wedding night with Jackson and not visiting Neverland very often at all. She also says that if she had been asked at the time of the marriage, she would have said there was no physical attraction to Jackson.

Drew asks — and it’s hard to believe this would have been a sanctioned question — “Did you have sex to make ?”

Rowe, by the way, had to get permission from her attorney and Jackson’s to do the interview so she wouldn’t break the confidentiality agreement she signed with the singer. After the interview aired, she received not even a thank-you from Jackson and never saw her children again, despite having a visitation schedule. Jackson, according to sources, never even returned her phone calls. When the child molestation scandal broke nine months later, Rowe’s attempts to speak with Jackson were again completely rebuffed.

Debbie Rowe’s Testimony Sets Back Prosecution, 27th April, 2005

Debbie Rowe, Michael Jackson’s ex – wife and mother of two of his children, took the stand in Santa Maria today for about 40 minutes . The topic of testimony for the past few days has been if the praise directed to Michael by both the accuser’s mother and Debbie Rowe in the rebuttal video. It is the accuser’s mother, Janet Arvizo, who claims that her remarks were scripted. Ms. Rowe, on the other hand, tearfully reported today that she was never scripted or rehearsed to say positive things about Michael in the video “Take Two…”

Prosecutors called Ms. Rowe hoping to bolster their argument that Michael conspired to hold the Arvizo family captive in order to convince them to rebut the Bashir documentary. And the prosecution had said that Ms. Rowe would offer similar testimony. Back on February 28, D.A. Sneddon told the jury in his opening statement that they were going to hear Debbie Rowe tell a tale similar to that of Janet Arvizo. Debbie Rowe will tell you her interview also was completely scripted. They scripted that interview just like they scripted the (accuser’s mother’s) interview.”

But Debbie Rowe’s testimony Wednesday did not pan out the way the prosecution had hoped.

Ms. Rowe said “I didn’t want anyone to be able to come back to me and say my interview was rehearsed. As Mr. Jackson knows, no one can tell me what to say.”

Ms. Rowe said that he was offered a list of questions by interviewers, but declined to look at them prior to the interview. “It was a cold interview and I wanted to keep it that way,” she said.

Ms. Rowe appeared nervous at first. She told the jury that she and Michael had been friends and that they were married, but never shared a home. When Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen asked her what she expected would happen after the interview, she responded that she believed that she would be “reunited with the children and be reacquainted with their dad.”

She said that she spoke with Michael in 2003 on the phone and that he had told her that there was a video coming out and that it was full of lies. He asked her if she would help and she said yes. She said that the conversation lasted about 2 1/2 minutes and that Michael did not specify what exactly he wanted her to do. When asked why she would help Michael, Ms. Rowe responded, “I promised him I would always be there for Michael and the children.”

Some court observers said Rowe seemed to have a genuine affection for her ex-husband – even as she testified for the prosecution.

Ms. Rowe made it clear that she would not discuss any details of her private life with Michael. “My personal life was my personal life and no one’s business,” she said when the prosecution asked if she had spoken completely truthfully in the video.

Ms. Rowe said that the taped interview lasted nine hours and that she recently saw a two – hour version that was shown to her by the prosecution. She said that she found it “very boring and dull” and really didn’t pay attention while she was watching it. She also said that she did not see the Bashir documentary prior to her interview was taped.

“All I knew is what was being put out about Michael was hurtful to Michael and the children,” she said.

Ms. Rowe is expected to be on the stand for at least a few days and could be the prosecution’s final witness before it rests its case.

Earlier in the day, the defense requested a mistrial during a controversy that involved testimony regarding the television documentary. Judge Melville turned down the request.

At least one legal eagle said Rowe’s testimony shouldn’t be a part of this trial. Criminal defense attorney Drew Findling told FOX News:

“This is another example of Judge Melville losing control of this trial. This is why this trial is taking forever. To the rest of the U.S., this is garbage. … Who gives a crap? If ever she [Debbie Rowe] has been scripted, she’s been scripted for today.”

Friedman – Debbie Rowe Classes Up The Trial, April 28, 2005:

As I predicted yesterday, Debbie Rowe was not the blockbuster witness for the prosecution in the Michael Jackson trial. Rowe did just as I said she would: she comported herself with dignity and told the truth.

She said she did not read from a script in her February 2003 television interview supporting Jackson. She told the court that she answered all the questions posed to her with her usual spontaneity and honesty. It was another decisive moment in this trial for the defense, and they haven’t even begun to present their own case.

Now that Rowe has made her appearance, though, do we think Jackson will show his appreciation? She could have easily lied, or at least colored her testimony to make him look bad. She had every reason to do so if she wanted revenge.

It has been years since since Jackson has let her see the two children she gave birth to, even though I’m told he may have no biological connection to them. He has even taught them to think they have no mother. And Jackson has done all this to a woman who was his friend for several years prior, and agreed to give him children as a gift.

Forget that she was paid millions in exchange. Debbie Rowe is a human being, even if Michael Jackson doesn’t think of her that way. She proved it yesterday.

Isn’t it time Jackson showed her the same respect she’s shown him? In their custody-alimony case, long running in Los Angeles family court, Jackson continues to send in a succession of attorneys with new and daunting motions all aimed at one thing: to deny Rowe the right ever to see her children again. That doesn’t sound like the mark of a great humanitarian and supporter of children. And with Jackson, I’m told, the hypocrisy doesn’t end there.

Debbie Rowe Finishes Testimony: Michael Great Father, 04-28-2005

Debbie Rowe’s finished her testimony on Thursday. Her testimony was sometimes teary, sometimes salty and sarcastic. At one point she said, “Damn you” to prosecutors in an apparent misunderstanding about a question.

Rowe reiterated that she did not use a script when she recorded the video interview. She said that at some point she was asked to rephrase answers to make them clearer, but agreed to change the answers “only if it didn’t change the meaning of what I had to say.” Prosecutor Ron Zonen asked:

And what was the meaning of what you had to say?”

Rowe replied: “Michael is a great person and a great father, generous and caring.”

Zonen then asked a series of questions about statements she made on the tape that were not true. Debbie Rowe acknowledged that she represented herself as part of Jackson’s family even though at that time she was not. But she said she did consider herself part of the family. Asked why she was willing to help Jackson, she said:

“I was eager to do it because I would get to see my children and possibly renew a relationship with Mr. Jackson.”

After the interview there was some discussion with Jackson associate Marc Schaffel about when she would see her children. He told her they would soon arrange a visit to the Neverland Valley Ranch and that she waited to push the issue because “I didn’t want to be a nudge.”

The prosecution also asked a question designed to show she had no recent knowledge of Jackson’s parenting skills at the time of the interview:

“How long had it been since you had seen your children?”

Debbie Rowe answered:

“About 2 1/2 years.”

On cross-examination she said she did not blame Michael Jackson for keeping her from her children but felt that his advisers and lawyers were to blame.

Defense attorney Mesereau tried to show that some of the men who prosecutors say tried to conspire with Jackson may have been working against him. Mesereau asked Rowe if she had told sheriff’s deputies that she believed Schaffel and German businessmen Dieter Wiesner and Ronald Konitzer were trying to exploit Jackson’s name to make money.

“Oh yeah,” Rowe replied.

She testified that at one point she even tried to get a note to Michael Jackson that expressed her trepidations. Rowe said the associates recruited her to make a video praising Jackson, then sold it for millions and kept the money. She said the organizer of the video, Marc Schaffel, bragged to her about how much money he was making off Jackson.

“He was out to hurt Michael and in addition would hurt my children.

“He’s like everybody else around Mr. Jackson. He wouldn’t tell him everything … Obviously he’s full of …”

She used an expletive to describe Schaffel and said he was “talking out of both sides of his mouth, telling me one thing and telling Mr. Jackson something else.” She also testified that she does not believe Jackson was privy to all activity by his associates:

“There’s a number of times they don’t consult him.”

Asked about the relationship of Schaffel, Wiesner, and Konitzer to Jackson, she said,

“I think they’re opportunistic vultures.”

When asked who else she considered to be a vulture, she paused and prosecutors objected. Judge Melville ruled:

“It looks like she’s got a long list. I think I’ll sustain the objection.”

Rowe also had harsh words about Jackson’s former attorney, Mark Geragos. When Mesereau asked her if one of the alleged co-conspirators had retained Geragos, Rowe snickered.

“I don’t know who picked him. But whoever did made a huge mistake. Come on. He either pleads out or loses.”

At one point, Mesereau asked Debbie Rowe if she was aware that the Sheriff’s Department had recorded her. Looking surprised, she turned to the prosecution table and said:

However, further questioning suggested the recording was an interview with an investigator that Rowe actually knew was recorded.

When she was asked by the defense to describe Jackson, she caught her breath and said:

“Generous to a fault, good father, great with kids, puts other people ahead of him. Brilliant businessman.”

When Mesereau asked her, if she still considered Jackson a friend, she replied:

“Yeah, if he’d talk to me.”

She became tearful when she described her feelings about Michael:

“There’s different Michaels. There’s like my Michael and the Michael that everyone else sees.

According to people present in the court room Michael Jackson dabbed at his eyes as she spoke.

Mesereau asked: “That would be Michael the entertainer?”

“Michael the entertainer, yeah.”

She also said that Michael is a “great person and a great father”.

At one point she almost engaged in a dialogue with Michael. Asked when she had gone on tour with Jackson, she looked to the defendant and asked:

“What was the tour after ‘Bad?’ Was it the ‘HIStory’ tour or ‘Dangerous?’ Oh, it was ‘Dangerous.”‘

As Michael Jackson left court at the end of the day he was asked if it was good to see Rowe again:

“Yes,” he said.

Rowe had been called by the prosecution to bolster a charge that Michael Jackson and his associates conspired to hold the accuser’s family captive to make a video praising him. But the strategy may have backfired when Rowe portrayed Jackson as the one victimized by the men, who are named as unindicted co-conspirators in the case. San Francisco defense lawyer Michael Cardoza, who has been observing the trial, said:

“Deborah Rowe was a devastating witness for the prosecution.”

He noted that it was even more damaging because prosecutors are about to wind up their case.

“It’s like thinking you see a light at the end of a tunnel and it’s a train coming at you.”

“When Debbie Rowe came on the witness stand, she did everything the prosecution didn’t want her to do. This suggests to me that either this is a prosecution that, at the end of their case, is either scrambling for witnesses or they really can’t control their witnesses.”

“Jackson ought to be sending flowers to his ex-wife because she rode to his rescue in court. Answer after answer, she helped the defense, she hurt prosecutors and the police, and she left the case against Jackson much worse than she found it.

The problem for prosecutors is that they had to gain ground with Debbie Rowe. They needed her to tie together some of the strands of their case against Jackson, and instead of doing that they very clearly lost ground. Meanwhile they are running out of time before the end of their case and they just won’t have many more of these opportunities.”

KING: We now welcome, for an exclusive interview, Iris Joan Finsilver. She is Debbie Rowe’s attorney, that’s Michael Jackson’s ex-wife, who finished her testimony today, and because of the gag order and attorney/client confidentiality, there are some major constraints on what Iris can talk about. Tell us what we can’t talk about.

IRIS JOAN FINSILVER: Well, we can’t talk about the criminal trial. I can’t talk about the testimony. I can’t talk about the witnesses. I can’t talk about the family law matter.

KING: Thank you for coming, Iris.

FINSILVER: I can’t talk about the attorney/client privilege.

KING: Quite a pleasure meeting you.

FINSILVER: But, I’m happy to be here, Larry.

KING: Very happy to have you. What about her emotionally? She was quite emotional today, so, without going into specifics, does that surprise you?

FINSILVER: No, it doesn’t surprise me a bit, because, you can imagine what it would be like to face, for anybody, to face their ex- husband, somebody that they’ve had issues with, and they’re dealing with their children, and the most important things in their lives — it would be very difficult, I would expect, for anybody under that kind of circumstance, to go into a criminal trial and have to — have to answer questions.

KING: And all reports were that she was friendly for the defense — she looked at over at him appealingly — but she’s also in a lawsuit with him. Is there a conflict here? In her own — emotionally, without going into specifics, it seemed strange if you’re suing someone to also be favorable to them.

FINSILVER: You know, this is what I was saying. It’s very difficult to put yourself in somebody’s shoes, when you’re fighting for your children, for the things that are most important in your life, and she was called by the prosecution. I can’t really get into that.

KING: Were you surprised that the prosecution called her?

FINSILVER: Yes, I was, in the beginning, yes.

KING: Because everyone was saying she was going to say that she was coached in what to say and she said she wasn’t coached in what to say.

FINSILVER: You know, I don’t know what she testified to because I wasn’t in the courtroom.

KING: How did you become — how did you get to be her attorney?

FINSILVER: We started out with a friendship about 16 or 17 years ago.

KING: When she was a nurse?

FINSILVER: She was a nurse. She was working for Dr. Klein.

KING: Famous Dr. Klein.

FINSILVER: Yes, Arnold Klein in Beverly Hills. And, she and I became really very close, and I admired her qualities. She’s a really down-to-earth, hard-working, honest, decent person. She’s really a fine human being.

KING: How did she handle losing her children, emotionally?

FINSILVER: This is something that I feel uncomfortable talking about, because of the attorney/client privilege, so whatever she would have said to me, you know, about losing her children.

KING: What was your reaction to her as a mother? You said she was loving and everything.

FINSILVER: Yes.

KING: It must be horrible to go through life without being able to be with your own children.

FINSILVER: Well, that’s why I’ve been fighting so hard. I really — I believe in her position. I believe in her position very strongly, and I’ve been fighting for a long time and I’ve been fighting a very hard battle.

KING: It’s been said, all of the panelists have said on previous nights, if Michael were convicted, she would get the children. So, in a sense, wouldn’t she root for him to be convicted?

FINSILVER: I don’t know that she would root — if she believed — I don’t know what she believes in her mind, but, if, in her mind, hypothetically speaking, if she didn’t believe that he committed a crime, I don’t think that she would want an innocent person to go to jail.

KING: Even if it benefited her?

FINSILVER: I — She’s not that kind of person. She’s a very nice person.

KING: In an interview that aired on “Entertainment Tonight” last fall, Debbie Rowe was asked about her fears, gave very a cryptic answer. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DEBBIE ROWE, MICHAEL JACKSON’S EX-WIFE: I have fears I can’t talk about, and I wouldn’t. And my biggest fear is that those fears happen. And I can’t stop it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Why weren’t you allowed in court?

FINSILVER: Because we were both — you’re talking about today?

KING: Because you testified, too?

FINSILVER: I was called as a witness today and I testified today. So I — they like to keep the witnesses apart from one another so I couldn’t hear.

KING: What were you asked? You can say that, because we’re going to report that in a minute, so, what were you asked?

FINSILVER: I was asked…

KING: You can’t be gagged about something that’s already happened. This, I know.

FINSILVER: I was asked about a taping — a taped interview that occurred in 2003 — what I observed, what I heard.

KING: Was this the interview that she did in response to the interview that harmed him?

FINSILVER: The Bashir interview?

KING: Yes. This is the post-Bashir interview?

FINSILVER: Yes, that’s what I was asked about.

KING: You were asked about that. You weren’t on the stand very long?

FINSILVER: Not very long at all. No.

KING: Did the defense cross-examine you?

FINSILVER: No, they excused me right away.

KING: Tell us about what we don’t know about Debbie Rowe.

FINSILVER: Well, I think that people don’t understand the difficulties, the real difficulties, that she’s had, being thrust into the public spotlight. I don’t think that they understand why she’s made certain decisions that she’s made, but that’s because people don’t know what happened along the way. They don’t know what happened at step A, that led to step B, that led to step C. I don’t think they know how loyal and giving and generous — she’s a really great girl. She really is. She’s interesting. She’s full of life. She’s very private. So, she hasn’t been on television. She hasn’t discussed her life, and I think that people would not really know how kind and sweet she is.

KING: Wouldn’t it help, when this is over, for her to go on television, to get — the medium is the message?

FINSILVER: That’s what I think, but I don’t tell her whether she should go on television or not.

KING: But you could advise her.

FINSILVER: I can advise her.

KING: That’s what lawyers do right?

FINSILVER: Yes.

KING: What do you know about the marriage?

FINSILVER: I know they’re divorced.

KING: I know but there’s so many questions about it. Was there sex involved in that marriage?

FINSILVER: I don’t know. I wasn’t in the bedroom.

KING: They’re her children, though?

FINSILVER: They are her children.

KING: She gave birth to them?

FINSILVER: She gave birth to two of the three children — to Prince Michael and to Paris Catherine.

KING: Does she dislike the spotlight?

FINSILVER: Yes.

KING: What does she do?

FINSILVER: Well, she has a horse ranch now. She loves animals. She devotes herself to animals. You know, I told you she’s a sharing, generous, caring person. She now has 12 horses. And she has one horse that’s having a baby, maybe as we speak.

And so while she was up at the trial she kept calling and asking how the horse is doing. And she’s very concerned. And she takes care of the horses. She takes care of the tack room and the barn and all of those.

KING: Was it hard for her, Iris, to look at Michael? She hadn’t seen him in a long while, right?

FINSILVER: You know, Larry, like I told you, I didn’t talk to her about what happened in the courtroom today. She testified. And as soon as she finished testifying this morning, I went into the courtroom, and I gave my few minutes of testimony.

KING: How has she dealt with the bad publicity she’s gotten over apparently accepting money in lieu of having the reunion with the children. How has she dealt with that?

FINSILVER: Well, it’s devastating, of course. You know, for her to hear, oh, she sold her children to Michael Jackson…

KING: What is the true story?

FINSILVER: Well, that’s not the true story. That is not the true story.

KING: She did not sell the children — in a sense sell?

FINSILVER: No. No, absolutely not. But that’s what she has to listen to, and it’s very painful.

KING: Why doesn’t she have partial custody, then?

FINSILVER: Well, we’re working on something.

KING: How did she lose that? It’s hard for a mother to not have some custody of her own children?

FINSILVER: I wish I could tell you more. I can’t. There is…

KING: There’s no gag order in a civil case.

FINSILVER: No, there’s no gag order. But it’s a confidential proceeding. And it’s proceeding along — the family law matter is proceeding with long with Steven Lax. He’s a private judge — private, retired judge. And everything in that proceeding is very confidential.

KING: Is his decision binding?

FINSILVER: It can be appealed. And now that you mention it, there are currently two matters up on appeal in the court of appeals.

KING: He’s already ruled on?

FINSILVER: There’s different issues. Family law is not just one matter, it’s many different issues. And there’s one issue that’s in the court of appeals, and that’s public record.

KING: It’s not public?

FINSILVER: That’s public, yes.

KING: Which was that?

FINSILVER: Well, there was one order reinstating Debbie’s parental termination. There was a parental termination proceeding. And we were successful in getting that set aside. And Michael’s counsel has appealed that decision.

KING: I see.

So you’re now in the ball’s bouncing in the air kind of thing.

FINSILVER: Yes.

KING: As an attorney with some experience, are you confident she’s going to get at least partial custody back of those children?

FINSILVER: In my opinion?

KING: Yes.

FINSILVER: Yes. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be working so hard on this matter. Yes, I think that she should.

KING: And just to reiterate, the reason she doesn’t have them is not because she took money?

FINSILVER: No.

KING: It was not a financial deal?

FINSILVER: No. No, it was not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROWE: We are a family unit. Michael and I will always be connected with the kids. I will always be there for him. I will always be there for the children. And people make remarks, oh, I can’t believe she left her children. Left them? I left my children? I did not leave my children. My children are with their father where they’re supposed to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Rowe’s Attorney Testifies 29th April 2005

On Thursday, Debbie Rowe was followed to the stand by her attorney, Iris Joan Finsilber.

Finsilver testified that she was present for the taping of Rowe’s interview and that Jackson’s associates repeatedly said such things as, “Oh, Michael will be very pleased about this.” She also testified there was talk that they would soon visit the Neverland Valley Ranch.

Investigator Testifies About Debbie Rowe, AP News, 3rd May, 2005

District Attorney Tom Sneddon brought in Sgt. Steve Robel today in an attempt to impeach Debbie Rowe’s testimony. Ms. Rowe proved to be a disappointing witness for the prosecution last week when she testified that Michael Jackson was a wonderful fahter, a generous person and a victim of “opportunistic vultures” in his inner circle who were attempting to take advantage of his problems for their personal gain.

Robel said that when he spoke with Ms. Rowe, she expressed concerns with Michael’s parenting. “She referred to Michael as a sociopath and his children as being possessions,” he told the jury. Robel also said that Ms. Rowe had told him that she and Michael had a plan following their divorce in 1999.

Judge Melville sustained a number of objections from the defense as Robel attempted to elaborate. In the end, he was able to describe the idea was “to talk positive about Mr. Jackson” after the divorce in all statements made to the public. Robel testified that Ms. Rowe said that those statements were false.

Debbie Rowe Calls In The Police, 12th May, 2005

Debbie Rowe, Michael Jackson’s ex-wife, has called police to her rural horse ranch near Los Angeles after telling them she fears for her life in her new home. Specifically she fears she’ll be attacked in her home by those who were upset by her glowing remarks about Michael Jackson on the stand In Santa Maria less than two weeks ago.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies were caught on camera inspecting her spread home. Police officials insist they’re glad Rowe is concerned about her wellbeing and called – because it’s better to be prepared for the worst. Police spokesman Mark Machanic said:

“Some people do not like her and there could be incidents of violence and she should be concerned for her safety. We’re concerned also.”

Machanic revealed Rowe was particularly distressed by a conversation she had with a female journalist:

“She had a confrontation with a female reporter. The newspaper reporter took off and almost ran her over. We’re conducting an investigation on that.

We’ve told her that if she sees a suspicious vehicle in front of the home to just call us and we’ve advised her in regard to citizen’s arrest procedures for trespassing.”

Aired June 13, 2005 – 17:30 ET

DORNIN: Also, Wolf, I just did want to add…

BLITZER: Rusty, just to remind our viewers because I know you were there together with Ted for virtually every step of the way, Debbie Rowe was called — the ex-wife of Michael Jackson, the mother of two of his children — Debbie Rowe was called to testify on behalf of the prosecution, but what she said, widely interpreted as helping Michael Jackson, the defense, given the loving nature of what he had to say about Michael Jackson.

ROWLANDS: And, keep in mind, Wolf, that if Michael Jackson would have been found guilty, Debbie Rowe would have been taken custody of the children and she is currently in a custody fight for those children. People were blown away by her testimony. It was so supportive of Jackson on the stand, and now, with the verdict in, again, she is showing her support, saying she is overjoyed.

Debbie Rowe Happy About Verdict, Fox News, 14th June, 2005

Debbie Rowe, Michael Jackson’s ex-wife and mother of two of his children, is thrilled that Michael is a free man after he was acquitted on all charges. Speaking through her attorney, she was among a number of high-profile supporters to issue statements after the verdict was announced.

“Debbie is overjoyed that the justice system really works, regardless of which side called her to testify at the trial.”

Although she had testified during the trial as a prosecution witness, her testimony turned out to be a very big support for the defense. A big thank you goes out to Debbie for supporting Michael in such difficult times.

In an interview to ‘Entertainment Tonight’ Debbie Rowe also said:

“I would never have married a pedophile. And the system works.”

Prosecution Probed Debbie Rowe, 12th July, 2005

According to the NY Post, prosecutors ordered the LAPD to find out if Debbie Rowe had received any benefits in order to testify in a positive way about her ex-husband Michael Jackson in the recent trial.

Debbie Rowe had inititally testified as a prosecution witness. However, her testimony proved extremely helpful for the defense and rather devastating for the prosecution. For example she described Michael Jackson as a great person and a wonderful father. That triggered the DA’s demand for a probe.

Last week L.A. Detective Federico Sicard reportedly said that he uncovered no double-dealing by Rowe:

“(Prosecutors) thought that she had been bribed by the defendant, but there wasn’t any proof.”

Debbie Rowe Sues Michael Over Payment, AP News, 13th July, 2006

Debbie Rowe filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on July 3, 2006. She is suing Michael Jackson, claiming he has failed to pay her what he promised when the two divorced in 1999. She seeks an immediate payment of $195,000 for attorney fees and $50,000 in living expenses.

In the lawsuit Debbie Rowe claims that Michael Jackson stopped making promised payments to her in October, 2003. The arrangement included $1 million per year for the first three years and $750,000 annually for six more years. Rowe also received a house in Beverly Hills and a 1998 Ford Explorer. She agreed to visit her children only once every 45 days.

The next court hearing on the matter is slated for July 26, 2006.

Update On Rowe Lawsuit, 28th July, 2006

The hearing in the case Debbie Rowe vs. Michael Jackson has been postponed until August 23, 2006. On Wednesday, there were no other major developments and no new documents have been filed since July 3, 2006 when Debbie Rowe for example stated she was broke.

Debbie Rowe had filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on July 3, 2006. She is suing Michael Jackson, claiming he has failed to pay her what he promised when the two divorced in 1999. She seeks an immediate payment of $195,000 for attorney fees and $50,000 in living expenses.

Rowe Vrs. Jackson Court Case, NYPost, 25th August, 2006

Back in 1999, Michael Jackson gave Debbie Rowe over $8 million in support and legal fees in their divorce settlement. Michael was granted custody of their two children, Prince Michael Jr, who is now 9 and Paris Michael who is now 8.

Debbie is now fighting to regain custody of the two children and is seeking around $245,000 in new legal fees from Michael.

In a response filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday but released on Thursday, Michael argues that he has already paid Rowe’s prior legal fees plus the millions of dollars agreed upon in the settlement. He also claims that she has broken a nondisclosure clause in the agreement.

The case will be heard by Judge Robert Schnider on Sept. 5.

Michael Jackson To Pay Deborah Rowe, NBC4TV.com, 6th September, 2006

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert A. Schnider ordered Michael Jackson to pay ex – wife Deborah Rowe $60,000 to go to lawyers fees that she incurred while trying to win visitation rights to the couple’s two children. The amount must be paid by September 28.

Michael and Rowe were not in court on Wednesday.

Judge Schnider noted that Rowe had already received a financial settlement of $8 million from Michael, commenting “She has millions of dollars, so she should be able to contribute to her own fees.”

Rowe had requested about $195,000 in attorney fees. Her lawyer, Eric M. George, remarked outside the courtroom that the award was “a reasonable calculation.” He added that Rowe has “no present ability” to pay her lawyers.

Rowe can request additional fees later.

Michael’s lawyer, Michael Abrams, had sought a delay in any awards until after Tuesday. At that time, the attorneys will engage in a private, voluntary settlement conference.

Abrams said “Hopefully all issues will be settled. In one week, this case may be over.

George was also cautiously optimistic in acheiving a timely settlement, but added “There have been too many settlement meetings and no settlement.”

As you may recall, Rowe originally had visitation with Prince, born in 1997 and Paris, born in 1998. When Rowe filed for divorce in 1999, she subsequently gave up her visitation rights. She later then changed her mind again.

BRIAN OXMAN: That`s right, Nancy. It is — because of Michael`s life and the commotion which surrounds, it`s absolutely chaos in most of the court proceedings where he is involved. As a result, both he and Debbie Rowe decided that they would do a private judge, which amounts to a private arbitration, very traditional in our court system and something which results in them keeping their dispute a matter of their own private nature and not letting the public know about it.

GRACE: To Brian Oxman, Jackson family attorney. We`re throwing around the theory that she doesn`t really want these children. Let`s just get right down to it. Are they his biological children? Are these two kids, two out of three he had with Debbie Rowe — are they his biological children?

OXMAN: Yes, they are, Nancy. They are his biological children. They were born with Michael Jackson being the father and Debbie Rowe being the mother. And the controversy over all of this is that these people don`t want their laundry…

GRACE: How do you know that? These two never spent a single night together. They never cohabited together. She was his dental hygienist! I mean, according to me, she went above and beyond the duty of a hygienist.

OXMAN: How do I know that?

GRACE: Yes.

OXMAN: Because, number one, that is what Michael has told me. Number two, it`s what my eyes tell me when I look at them. I look at their eyes, and they have a particular almond shape to them which is passed down by…

GRACE: I thought their eyes were blue.

OXMAN: The shape of the eyes is this almond-shape eyes. Latoya has it. Janet has it. And these kids have it.

GRACE: Question, Brian. I thought their eyes were blue.

OXMAN: Their color is blue, but my grandfather`s eyes were also blue, mine are brown. I`m not a geneticist…

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: … colored contacts.

OXMAN: I`m not a geneticist, and I`m not a physician, and they do not wear contacts. But what I can tell you…

GRACE: So Michael Jackson`s children have blue eyes, and you are insisting they`re his biological children.

OXMAN: From everything that I can see and from what everyone in this family has told me, they are his children.

GRACE: OK. Next question. Did he formally adopt them, or how did that work?

OXMAN: No, they were his children born while he was married to Debbie Rowe. Under California law, any time a child is born during a marriage, there is an absolute legal presumption that they belong to the husband, as the father. And that presumption cannot be overturned under any circumstances.

GRACE: Was it a real marriage or a fake marriage, Brian? You`re the family attorney. I mean, did they ever live together? Did they wake up and have coffee together, go, Bye, honey, when they left for the studio and the dental hygienist office?

OXMAN: I know what Debbie Rowe has said. She`s said to me, she`s said it in open court up in Santa Maria. She has been so enamored and in love with Michael her entire life. She is a nice girl. The problem is, they don`t get along, and that is what happens in two thirds of all marriages, and this is just one more of those kinds…

GRACE: Did they ever…

OXMAN: … of marriages.

GRACE: … together, Brian?

OXMAN: They had relations together. You betcha they did.

GRACE: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! I didn`t say have sex. I said, Did they live together as man and wife?

OXMAN: Yes, they did.

GRACE: When?

OXMAN: They had several years that they were together as a husband and wife.

GRACE: Where?

OXMAN: They traveled the world together. They were married overseas. And they have been friends for the longest time, even though they`ve been divorced.

GRACE: OK, what was their domicile? What was their joint marital domicile?

OXMAN: Michael has always had Neverland, until he declared that Bahrain was his domicile, and that`s where Debbie was to be domiciled. They lived in many different places around the world.

GRACE: So you`re telling me Debbie Rowe lived with him in Neverland.

OXMAN: She had been there with him, correct. Yes.

GRACE: Lived with him?

OXMAN: I can`t give you these kinds of details, Nancy, because that`s the whole point of this kind of private judging. They don`t want their laundry and their private details…

GRACE: Like the rest of us!

OXMAN: … discussed in public. It`s not like the rest of us. There are other cases…

GRACE: It is like the rest of us!

OXMAN: There are other cases where we have private judges, very great anti-trust cases…

GRACE: OK. You know, Brian…

OXMAN: … trade secret cases…

GRACE: Where?

OXMAN: All these have private judges.

GRACE: What other jurisdiction in this country has private judges that you pay for out of your pocket?

OXMAN: The federal courts have the Arbitration Act. The United Nations…

GRACE: That`s not a judge! Arbitration is not a judge.

OXMAN: It most certainly is. These — in California, there`s over 500 private judges. Six…

GRACE: What other jurisdiction other than California has private judges, the litigants pay for out of their pocket?

OXMAN: New York.

GRACE: They pay off the judges!

OXMAN: New York.

GRACE: No!

OXMAN: Texas.

GRACE: Absolutely not!

OXMAN: Missouri.

GRACE: No!

OXMAN: Minnesota.

GRACE: No.

OXMAN: These places…

GRACE: No, they don`t!

OXMAN: … have arbitration proceedings with private judges.

GRACE: They don`t have private judges! Arbitration is not the same thing as a private judge in court. Absolutely not!

OXMAN: It is — Nancy, it`s one and the same.

SANDERS: Well, I`m not a geneticist, but I think that unless there are blue-eyed people within the first and second generation of Jackson`s immediate family, then it`s virtually impossible for him to have a biological child that has blue eyes.

GRACE: Brian?

OXMAN: Nancy, Michael has a very interesting history and background, where he is partially Chinese, about one-fourth Chinese. He is also one- fourth American Indian. So he has these genes in his background.

GRACE: You`ve just named two — we`re talking about blue eyes, Brian. You`re not helping the argument.

OXMAN: I am not a geneticist, Nancy, nor am I going to tell you that I am a doctor to tell whether the children are or are not his.

GRACE: But you said they are.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: I`m talking about the legality.

OXMAN: From what I see, they are his kids.

GRACE: If they are not his biological children and they have not been adopted, he`s not going to have a leg to stand on, if it`s challenged in court. Is that the document he is trying to keep secret, Brian Oxman?

OXMAN: Not by any stretch of the imagination.

GRACE: Have you seen the document?

OXMAN: These are his kids.

GRACE: Have you seen the documents?

OXMAN: They are born during marriage and there is a legal presumption which is irrebuttable in the state of California that children born during marriage belong to the father as the biological father. They can scream, scratch and do whatever they want. They cannot get out of that legal presumption.

GRACE: Brian, you should really be a lawyer, because the way you just put that on me was great. But my question was the documents they`re hiding. Do they have anything to do with who is the biological father of these children? Just a simple question, yes, no, maybe.

OXMAN: No, the answer is no. They do not have anything to do with the biological nature of these children.

GRACE: Well, what do they have to do with? What are they?

OXMAN: The main problem is finances. Last year, 10,000 cases in the state of California were referred by the court system to the JAMS, the judicial arbitration medication service, because people wanted it private.

GRACE: I asked you about the documents.

OXMAN: Michael wants the finances private and he doesn`t want them disclosed all over the world and he has a right to do that.

GRACE: You mean like to the IRS?

OXMAN: That`s not even a problem or a consideration.

GRACE: OK.

OXMAN: It`s to the world which is the problem.

GRACE: OK, Brian Oxman, let`s get back to where the kids are now. This is all allegedly over a custody battle. But let`s just get down to it. Why now? Why is she contesting custody now? I mean, she states openly, “I don`t want the kids,” therefore, him.

She got $8 million. A house was thrown in to the deal. She went away. I don`t know where Blanket, the third kid, came from, but that`s a whole other can of worms.

My question is why is she contesting now? What does she want?

OXMAN: This latest case started in 2004. If the people will remember, there was a famous incident at the Ivy Restaurant in Los Angeles, where Debbie Rowe was filmed with Michael`s former advisers. They were agitating her and, as a result, she filed this custody proceeding and there we go.

Rowe Vs. Jackson Settled, 1st October, 2006

Debbie Rowe and Michael Jackson settled their disagreement over custody and visitation rights of their two children according to Rowe’s lawyer.

Although the details are still being ironed out, it seems that major disputes have been settled.

Marta Almli, Rowe’s attorney, declined to give details that involved monetary settlement or the details regarding visitation with the children, Michael Joseph Jackson Jr, known as Prince Michael and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson. She simply said that these were included in the settlement.

Michael’s lawyer, Michael L. Abrams, told The Daily Journal newspaper that “My client is very satisfied with the results. Hopefully (Michael and Debbie) can both get on with their lives now and be through with this litigation..

Michael and Debbie were married in 1996 with their marriage ending in divorce in 2000. Debbie filed for termination of parental rights in 2001, saying “Michael has been a wonderful father to the children and I do not wish to share any parenting responsibilities with Michael because he is doing so well without me.”

According to court documents, she said, “I want to forever give up any and all rights pertaining to the children because I believe that by doing so, it is in the children’s best interest.”

Before that, she said in documents, Jackson had allowed her visitation rights only if she went to distant locations such as Geneva and South Africa.

Following the allegations of child molestation in 2003, Debbie filed for temporary custody, alleging that she was concerned that Michael would be too distratcted to provide care for the children. She was also concerned with his association with individuals in the Nation of Islam. The NOI was alleged to be anti-Semetic.

“I am Jewish, as are by definition my children. I worried about how my children would be treated by these new advisers to Michael,” she said.

Debbie testified for Michael durring the trial on allegation of molestation, asserting that Michael was a loving and caring father.

According to documents, she said that she last saw Prince and Paris in 2005. Michael and the children have been living abroad while his lawyers continued to negotiate with Debbie.

On Sept. 6 a judge ruled that Michael must pay Debbie $60,000 in attorney fees from the custody battle.

Michael also has a third child, Prince Michael II.

Source: MJFC / AP

Debbie spoke about the concerns around MJ’s alcoholism, drug addiction problems then filed against MJ and requested a deposition from Grace regarding her drug dealing, MJ’s substance abuse and concerns for the children. The case ended up being a sealed settlement.

Pictures of her beloved ‘babies’ cover the yellowing walls of Debbie Rowe’s remote home. There are favourite snapshots, framed portraits and even paintings which perfectly capture their expressions of innocence.

Rowe studies the faces looking down at her and says fiercely: “I am possessive and protective of my babies. Their happiness means more to me than anything else on this world. I love them more than I would ever have thought was possible.”

It is, one might think, perfectly normal for a mother to feel this way about her children. But the portraits adorning Rowe’s walls show her menagerie of animals – not the two children she produced with, and then handed over to, Michael Jackson.

Indeed, there is not even a single, grainy snapshot of either Prince Michael, now ten, or Paris, nine, the children taken from her arms in the maternity ward in exchange for a multi-million-pound pay-off.

More than a decade after this plain dental nurse first joined the bizarre Michael Jackson roadshow, she lives alone breeding horses and dogs. There is little evidence in this impoverished and dusty backwater of the small fortune she is reputed to have received for effectively becoming America’s most famous surrogate mother.

Her ‘babies’ now include 11 dogs, including one half-wolf, a parrot who shares her bedroom and drinks from her coffee cup, a pair of parakeets and 30 horses – many of them pregnant mares. She says, with no trace of irony, that she finds it hard to give away her foals. “I have to send them to a trainer so I can detach myself from them. It stops me becoming too involved.”

Rowe worries more, it seems, about a young animal being led away from its mother than she does about the infants who were taken from her by the reclusive superstar. (Jackson later claimed that he was in such a rush to leave the hospital with daughter Paris in 1998 that he cut the cord and left with the baby covered in blood, taking the placenta with him in his haste.)

Since her second child by Jackson was removed, Rowe appears to have had scant dealings with her offspring – although she claims to see them sometimes. Certainly, though, the photograph of the children which made headline news this week – for once their faces not covered by the customary veils – offered Rowe a tantalising glimpse of the children she gave away.

This week, she invited the Mail into her home for an extraordinary, unsettling interview in which she broke the silence she has maintained for years about her infamous children. When asked about their appearance this week, she reacts with the grunt of a satisfied breeder, rather than a sigh of loss. “I turned out two pretty good-looking kids. For that I am proud.”

She is unhappy, however, that the children’s faces have been revealed.

“The veils were my idea, not Michael’s. I had kidnap threats when they were babies. I did not want them to be recognised. I’m not happy they’ve been photographed without the veils.”

Rowe, 49, is equally quick to dispel rumours that she has fallen out with her ex-husband, from whom she was divorced eight years ago, or is once more desperate for money. She says: “I don’t need money. Michael and I are fine. I see him and the kids all the time. They live in Las Vegas now, just a three-hour drive away.”

Given the fact that she admitted during Jackson’s child molestation court case in 2005 that she hadn’t seen him or the children for years, this claim seems unlikely – like so much else in her extraordinary story.

The adopted daughter of a millionaire couple from Malibu, Debbie Rowe became part of Jackson’s bizarre menagerie some 11 years ago. His marriage to Elvis’s daughter Lisa Marie Presley was crumbling, while Jackson’s desire to become a father was growing.

Rowe was a late developer both sexually and emotionally – she was 30 before she had her first serious relationship. She says of that romance: “I loved him so much. He was my first serious boyfriend – and it still hurts.”

By the Nineties, Rowe was recovering from the break-up and working as a nurse for Michael Jackson’s dermatologist, Dr Arnold Klein. She befriended Jackson and – like a schoolgirl with a crush – offered to bear him children when he spoke about his longing to be a father.

Incredibly, some kind of agreement was struck, and in early 1996 she was artificially inseminated, possibly through IVF, though she refuses to talk about the details. Whether it was with Jackson’s sperm or an anonymous donor’s – more likely given the light-coloured skin of the children she produced – Rowe is not saying.

The couple married at the Sheraton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, in November 1996, when Rowe was six months pregnant with their son. The bride was 37, Jackson 38, and the best man was an eight-year-old boy (a friend, of course, of the groom).

Their marriage was consummated with a peck on the cheek from Jackson, who retired – without her – to another room. There’s no evidence to suggest the couple ever had normal sexual relations.

The newly-weds returned to LA, but never lived as husband and wife. In February 1997, Rowe gave birth to their son, Prince Michael Jackson. The baby spent several hours in special care before Jackson rushed him to his Neverland Ranch, where a team of nannies stood waiting.

Rowe was quoted as saying later: “I’d never seen Michael so happy and that’s what made it so wonderful for me.”

So wonderful, in fact, that months later, Rowe was artificially impregnated again. She recalls: “Of course it was artificial insemination. Paris was conceived in Paris, that’s how she got her name. Michael wanted to call her Princess, but I thought that was stupid.”

Paris Katherine Jackson was born on April 3, 1998, and this time, Jackson later claimed, he simply wrapped the baby in a towel and fled.

Incredibly, it is not the memory of the bloodied newborn being torn from her arms which moves Rowe to tears now – but the sudden admission that she couldn’t bear Jackson any more children.

She bursts into tears and, sobbing loudly, says: “I had so many problems when I was pregnant with Paris. After that I couldn’t have any more children. Michael was upset about that, he couldn’t understand it. He wanted more babies.”

Rowe, it appeared, had served her physical use and was simply put out to pasture. She filed for divorce six months later – accepting a pay-off worth £4.2million over nine years, in return for giving up her custodial rights to the children.

The original divorce settlement allowed her one visit every 45 days, though she later applied to the court herself to terminate her parental rights altogether, claiming it was in the children’s best interests. Was she coerced? In the Alice in Wonderland world of Michael Jackson, we will probably never know.

He went on to ‘sire’ a third child – Prince Michael II, known as Blanket – by an unnamed surrogate.

Meanwhile, Rowe claims their relationship remained ‘fine’.

She adds defiantly: “It always has been. Michael and I have always got on. I only divorced him because I wanted my life back. I couldn’t cope with the constant pressure of fame. He’s the genius, the famous one. Not me. I turned out two good-looking kids, but I can’t sing, I can’t dance.”

Despite their divorce after a truly dysfunctional marriage, she still shows a surprising loyalty to the singer: when Jackson was accused of molesting a young boy three years ago, Rowe told the court he was a loving and caring father.

Under cross-examination, she admitted that she had not seen her ex-husband – or her own children – for some years, which rather undermines her claim to me that she still sees them regularly.

Jackson was cleared of sexual abuse, but moved with the children to the Middle East and then Ireland.

In 2006, Rowe took him to court, petitioning for her parental rights to be restored – despite her previous insistence that they should be withheld – and complaining that Jackson had stopped paying her. He claimed she had breached their confidentiality agreement – but a new settlement was reached in secret.

“I used to be an extrovert, but my marriage made me introverted. I was followed everywhere. I hated the fame. After I married Michael, it was hard to keep working. Staff at the clinic sold stories about me to the media. People were offered a million dollars for a picture of me pregnant. I even told my family to sell one; I thought they could do with the money. But they refused.”

After her divorce, Rowe continued to live in the Beverly Hills mansion which Jackson gave her as part of their settlement, and studied at an online university to gain degrees in criminal law and psychology.

“I wanted to work in a prison,” she explains. “I thought I could help because you can’t mess up someone who is already in jail. In the end I loved horses more and I wanted to get away from LA. I was trailed everywhere by the paparazzi.”

Three years ago, Rowe sold up and moved to a three-bedroom ranch-style house in Palmdale, an ugly, rundown desert town 60 miles from LA.

Here, in the heat and solitude, Rowe appears to have found some peace. She takes a deep breath and says: “Out here in the fresh air I feel much better. No one knows me here. I don’t talk to anyone. I just get on with my life breeding horses. As soon as I saw this place I fell in love with it – for the land. I’m up at 6am with the animals and we have the most extraordinary sunrises.

“I have a boyfriend. He’s a murder cop, we’ve dated on and off for 30 years. Until now, our timing was always out.”

Arnold Klein on Larry King, 8th July 2009

KING: Now, the Debbie Rowe part of the story. She was your nurse, right?

KLEIN: Yes.

KING: They met, I guess, in your office?

KLEIN: Yes.

KING: Was that a real love affair?

KLEIN: I don’t know what love is in that sense of the imagination. I think that she loves him very much. She admired him very much. But if you think they’re riding off in a horse-drawn carriage, I mean we have to put — what is a normal relationship? We have to go back to Marie Bonaparte, who once said to Danny Kaye (ph) when he went to say, what do you have to tell me that’s different? And she didn’t even know who Danny Kaye was. She’s the first woman of royal heritage to undergo analysis. She said to Danny Kaye, the normal (inaudible) have to be found and be found cured. Which means, who of us are normal? What is normal? So I’m telling you, was that a love affair, you want to know. I think she really cared about his welfare.

KING: It was not a sexual relationship?

KLEIN: I think they did have sex.

KING: You do?

KLEIN: Yes, I really do, and I can’t guarantee that. I think they did have sex in their relationship.

KING: You think Michael ever had sex to father the children?

KLEIN: I don’t know that answer, because I would that that it’s possible that he did. You can’t guarantee that. You can only guarantee things you see. I don’t want to make any suppositions about anything in this interview, because I want this to be as truthful as possible.

Debbie Rowe has stayed out of the spotlight. Her good friend is here to tell us why next.

KING: We now welcome Iris Finsilver to LARRY KING LIVE; a return visit for the former attorney for Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe and still a close friend of Debbie’s. What did you make of the Joe Jackson interview?

IRIS FINSILVER: Well, I think it is a real bombshell, Larry. It’s certainly surprising a lot of the things that were said today.

KING: When did you last have contact with Debbie?

FINSILVER: Last Friday is the last time I talked to Debbie.

KING: Not long ago and how is she doing?

FINSILVER: Well, yes, I try to talk to her every day.

KING: Has she seen the children?

FINSILVER: No. Not yet.

KING: What does she plan to do?

FINSILVER: Well, as far as I know…

KING: Plus, the hearing has been postponed, right?

FINSILVER: Correct. It’s my understanding that certainly the family would try to work something out. I believe that that’s what the judge said in open court. And that’s always the best thing to do in a family situation is to have the parents and the grandparents sit down and talk about what their concerns are, what they might be afraid of.

KING: What does Debbie want with her children?

FINSILVER: Well, obviously, she would like to have a relationship with her children.

KING: Not custody?

FINSILVER: I don’t know — I really — I don’t know if she wants every day hands-on custody of the kids. The thing is, when she was married to Michael and having children with Michael she wanted to be a part of their lives but she recognized in her mind that Michael would be a better parent.

KING: She did?

FINSILVER: Yes. She thought he would be a great…

KING: That’s an honest way to look at it.

FINSILVER: Yes, she said…

KING: With all the rumors swirling around, did she ever tell you that Michael wasn’t the father?

FINSILVER: I know that Michael was the father.

KING: Was the father.

FINSILVER: One hundred percent, Michael is the father of those two children. Yes.

KING: So if it’s not custody, you think an arrangement will be worked out?

FINSILVER: I think so. I would hope so certainly. Sure.

KING: Why do people have negative feelings about Debbie, do you think?

FINSILVER: I think that the Jackson family doesn’t know Debbie. Michael knew Debbie. I don’t think that Katherine has ever met Debbie as far as I know. I don’t think that Joe has ever met Debbie.

I don’t know about the brothers and the sisters. But I think because they don’t know her, they’re fearful that she might do something or say something or you know it’s…

KING: She blew-up at some paparazzi a couple weeks ago last week I think. Did that surprised you?

FINSILVER: No. I mean, it’s not in her character to blow-up. But it certainly didn’t surprise me to see a pack of photographers on her heels and for her to make a comment like that. I think that she’s been very upset. I’ve spoken to her about it. She’s had the paparazzi camped outside of her house.

KING: Still?

FINSILVER: Still. Still.

KING: How has all of this changed, you knew her before Michael, right?

FINSILVER: Yes and I’ve known Debbie before, during and after.

KING: Events changed life, right?

FINSILVER: Absolutely.

KING: People don’t change, circumstances change. How has she changed?

FINSILVER: Debbie is still the same caring, loving person. Debbie has always loved those children.

I want to tell you something about her kids. She used to have pictures in her house of herself with her children. And one day I went in to her closet and it was like a shrine in the closet with all these pictures. So I said “Debbie why do you have all the pictures of your children in your closet?” And she said, “I can’t leave them out. When people come in to my home they steal these photographs.”

KING: What’s wrong with that?

FINSILVER: She doesn’t want her guests to come in the house and steal photographs of her children.

KING: Oh, steal them.

FINSILVER: Steal. Yes, yes.

KING: So why do you think she doesn’t want them, now?

FINSILVER: Oh I didn’t say it…

KING: She thought Michael would be a better father but he’s gone.

FINSILVER: Right, so I didn’t…

KING: Does she think Katherine is a good mother?

FINSILVER: I know, I…

KING: …a good grandmother?

FINSILVER: I don’t want to put those kinds of thoughts out there that she would say that. I think that she wants to step up to the plate. She’s always loved those children, Larry. Always.

KING: Is she very emotionally distraught over Michael’s death?

FINSILVER: Yes. Yes. She loved him more than any other person in the world. And you asked me a question, Larry. You asked me, did I see this change in Debbie.

KING: Yes.

FINSILVER: And I remember the night that she was leaving Beverly Hills to fly to Australia to get married to Michael. and I said, “Debbie, your world is going to change completely.” And she said, “No, no. I’m still going to be the same me,” and she skipped out the door and ran-off to get married.

She really had no idea that the world would be interested in her.

KING: Why did they break up?

FINSILVER: I really don’t know the exact facts. I think that she didn’t like life in the public eye. She had been in Paris with him. She had gone on various tours with him.

KING: It wasn’t her style?

FINSILVER: It’s not her style.

KING: Was it — was Michael — but was that in vitro with Michael or was it natural sex?

FINSILVER: That I don’t know. I know that they had sex together. That’s what she told me.

KING: Now that — Arnold Klein said that the other night, you have no about that, right?

FINSILVER: That Debbie had sex…

KING: Sex with Michael.

FINSILVER: I have no doubt. I wasn’t in the bedroom. But I have no doubt that when she would tell me her — these little things about their private life — that it would…

KING: Will you attend the custody hearing when she attends.

FINSILVER: No. I don’t believe so.

KING: Why not? You’re her friend, you were her lawyer?

FINSILVER: I’m her friend. I’m there for her in her personal life. I want to stay out of the courtroom when she’s in the courtroom so.

KING: But you do think it’ll be resolved so that she can get visitation, Katherine will raise them. They’ll work it out?

FINSILVER: I think if the Jackson family gets to know Debbie and if they sit down and talk to her, whatever fears they’re thinking…

Debbie Rowe gets official invite to Michael Jackson’s funeral Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe has been formally invited to his funeral – the first time she will be with their children since the King of Pop’s death. August 28, 2009, (Splash News) – Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe has been formally invited to his funeral – the first time she will be with their children since the King of Pop’s death.

Jackson’s family officially invited Rowe to the funeral planned for next Friday, more than two months after he died while preparing for his London comeback gigs.

If she accepts, it will be Rowe’s first supervised visit with her children with Jackson, Prince Michael, 12, and Paris, 11, following her reaching a deal to give Jackson’s mum Katherine custody.

Sawf News, 29th June 2009

A News of the World interview that quotes Debbie Rowe as saying that Michael wasn’t the biological father of his eldest two children, Prince and Paris, is a fake, says her lawyer.

In the interview, Debbie is also quoted as saying that she had no interest in seeking custody of Prince and Paris.

“The interview did not occur. The article is a complete fabrication,” Marta Almli tells RadarOnline.com.

Almli refused to answer questions on Rowe’s likely future course of action regarding the custody of the children.

Debbie Rowe, 50, a former dermatologist nurse, is the biological mother of Michael Joseph, Jr., 12, aka Prince, and Paris Michael Katherine, 11. Michael Jackson’s third child, Prince Michael Jackson II was born to an artificially inseminated surrogate mother whose identity has never been revealed.

Debbie met Michael Jackson while he was being treated for vitiligo in the mid 1980s.

Long term friends, they became romantically involved after Michael’s divorce from Lisa Marie Presley.

The couple married in 1996, after Rowe became pregnant.

CNN, 10 July 2009

HILL: Probably not a lot of surprise there, Randi. I know we got word late today that the custody hearing for Michael Jackson’s children, which was scheduled for Monday, has been postponed a second time at the request of both his mother, Katherine, and Debbie Rowe.

Any more insights tonight into whether or not Debbie Rowe, Jackson’s ex-wife is actually planning to seek custody of the couple’s two children?

KAYE: We have a little bit of information. I spoke with a friend of Debbie Rowe’s who also happens to be a former business partner of Michael Jackson’s (Schaffel). And he told me that he fully expects Debbie Rowe to go for custody.

He said the fact that Joe Jackson — Michael Jackson’s father is talking about helping raise the children is really a problem for her since Michael Jackson had a terrible relationship with his father.

This friend also told me that Debbie Rowe had said and I’m quoting here, actually he said this about her, “she is not just going to lay down and roll over,” he said.

So maybe they are trying to come to an agreement out of court and out of the public eye and that’s why this hearing has been delayed. But we’ll have to wait and see if this gets ugly.

Aired July 14, 2009

“The New York Post” is reporting that Debbie Rowe has reached a deal in exchange for the two children that she had with Michael Jackson for $4 million. The newspaper also said that she would forfeit her parental rights, all of this supposedly according to a family source.

Well, CNN called Debbie Rowe’s attorney to ask if this story was true. And we were told, simply — quote — “completely false.” That was all we got. Well, that happened this morning. But, hours later, Debbie Rowe’s attorney, Eric George, demanded a retraction.

Now, “The Post” told CNN it stands by its story. But Rowe’s attorney sent this letter, which we have right here, to the paper. It reads, in part: “This letter constitutes a demand for an immediate retraction.”

It goes on to say: “There has been no agreement reached between Ms. Rowe and the Jacksons. And Ms. Rowe has not and will not give up her parental rights.” Also, that “no determination has been reached concerning custody or visitation.”

What’s interesting, Wolf, about this letter is that it never says that there aren’t negotiations taking place behind-the-scenes. It just simply says an agreement has not been reached yet.

We reported last night on CNN that a deal is being brokered behind the scenes by the family’s attorneys and that Debbie Rowe, according to our source close to the family, is expected to be paid “many millions” for giving up custody and visitation with the two children.

Debbie Receives Invite to Funeral, Sawfnews, August 28 2009

Debbie Rowe gets official invite to Michael Jackson’s funeral Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe has been formally invited to his funeral – the first time she will be with their children since the King of Pop’s death. August 28, 2009, (Splash News) – Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe has been formally invited to his funeral – the first time she will be with their children since the King of Pop’s death.

Jackson’s family officially invited Rowe to the funeral planned for next Friday, more than two months after he died while preparing for his London comeback gigs.

If she accepts, it will be Rowe’s first supervised visit with her children with Jackson, Prince Michael, 12, and Paris, 11, following her reaching a deal to give Jackson’s mum Katherine custody.

And Debbie Rowe, the mother of Michael`s two oldest kids, Paris and Prince, is also speaking out in brand-new interview today. I can tell you she is worried especially after hearing reports that the stun gun was aimed at Michael`s youngest son, Blanket. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you not know about the stun gun incident?

DEBBIE ROWE, MOTHER OF PRINCE AND PARIS JACKSON: I don`t know the specifics about anything.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not even about the stun incident or anything?

ROWE: Well, yes, that`s been reported. But I don`t know any details about anything. So I can`t really comment on anything.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, are you allowed to contact your kids?

ROWE: Of course, I`m worried about my kids. Why would I not be worried about a child?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, over and above anything else.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, she is the mother of the children.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you worried as a general relative or are you worried as a –

ROWE: Yes, it`s their brother.

Debbie visits Forest Lawn, 4th March 2010

Ejacobs over at MJJC writes:

As always on the 3rd of the month, myself and members of our Michael Jackson fans of southern California took our trip to Visit the Grave of Michael Jackson. We bring cards, letters and gifts from fans around the world. We have been doing this for the last 6 months. Some fans from this site have joined us and many have sent flowers and cards.

Today, like any other 3rd we were at Forest Lawn, when one in the group noticed Debbie Rowe driving back and forth. At first we thought he must be seeing things but then she drove up and we were surprised it was really her. Heidi and myself the group founders walked to the car to welcome and introduce ourselves.

What we were faced with was a woman who was in great pain. The moment she stepped out of the car She began to cry and gave us amazing hugs. After spending some time with Debbie today..we realized two things, she is devastated by the death of her former husband Michael Jackson..and she loved him more than we ever imagined. She is a grieving woman who loved MJ and her children. The second thing we learned is that, she is a kind and lovely woman.

When we asked Her why she was driving back and forth, and this broke my heart..she said she was afraid to stop because she saw us all there and was afraid to stop, she thought that Michael’s fans hated her because of all the hate mail she receives. We assured her there was no hate for her with us only gratitude for giving Michael two of the three most precious gifts of his life.

Debbie Rowe was a friend to Michael Jackson for nearly 20 yrs before they married and she is the mother of his two lovely children, Prince and Paris. Let me tell you..looking at her, you see Paris everywhere. I hope that fans will be kind when it comes to her because if you had seen what we saw today…she is a really special person.

We gave her one of our new JUSTICE4MJ tee shirts and she said she would ware it. We have pictures of the visit which will be on our site soon.

Daily Express, June 28th 2010

Katherine said during a TV interview that she had never met Debbie, an ex-nurse before the King of Pop died in June 2010.

“We cried together. We talked. We had a nice time together,” the Daily Express quoted Katherine as saying.

“Debbie is happy with the arrangement the way Michael left it, with me as the children’s legal guardian. I respect her and love her for that. Debbie is their biological mother and I feel she should be in their lives,” she added.

“Debbie is now a regular visitor to Encino, the Los Angeles suburb where Katherine and the children live. We have clicked and I want those visits to continue,” said 80-year-old Katherine.

Apart from spending time with her children Prince and Paris, Debbie also takes care of 8-year-old Blanket, the identity of whose surrogate mother has never been revealed, reports The Daily Express.

“The kids are doing fabulously well. They are all straight A students,” Katherine said.

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The Other Side of Michael Jackson

“What is the definition of cool? Michael Jackson made “Heal the World.” He could do that because he was golden. He was himself. He didn’t have to try to be cool. Think about a lot of your favorite bands or groups. Would they make a song called “Heal the World”? No, because they are too concerned about their leather jackets. Ironically, they are probably wearing leather jackets because of Michael Jackson.”
— Kanye West